Canary in the Coal Mine - Day

11:55AM

I do not believe that the American system of solving the problem stands any chance. First, they deny that there is a difference between the blacks and the whites. Once you deny that, then you’re caught in a bind. All right, if we are equal, then why am I now worse off? You have fixed me. The system has fixed me. So they say, right, let’s go for affirmative action. Lower marks to go to university, and you must have a quota for number of sales-persons or announcers on radio or TV. And so you get caught in a thousand and one different ways. And you say, since the army is now 30, 40 per cent blacks, you must have so many generals, so many colonels, and so on.

I don’t know how they have got into this bind, but I think that is not realistic. You don’t have to offend people because they are not as good as you. I mean I’m not as smart as an Israeli or many Chinese for that matter. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not to be treated as equal in my rights as a human being.

The only way we can all really be physiologically equal in brain power and everything else is to have a melange. All go into a melting pot and you stir it. In other words, force mixed marriages, which is what the people in Zanzibar tried. The blacks wanted to marry all the Arab girls so that the next generation, their children, will be half-Arab. But I don’t think that’s a practical way nor will it solve the problem. And you can’t do that worldwide, you can - maybe you can do that in Zanzibar. In the process, you diminish Zanzibar.

Because whereas before you had some outstanding people who can do things for Zanzibar, now you have brought them down to a lower level.

So my attitude now would be a very practical one of saying that we are equal human beings. Whether you can run 100 yards in 20 minutes, 20 seconds or 10 seconds, you’ve got a right to be here. But that doesn’t mean that because you run at 20 seconds, I must run at 20 seconds. Then we’ll all get nowhere.