Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Kenneth ClarkKenneth Clark
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Session:         Page of 763

The day after we got there was their official inauguration of television. They're imprisoned by their television, because they have to find some way of regulating it so that it does not become an instrument of stimulating aspirations in the blacks.

If someone would ask me, and I guess this sounds really sour grape-ish or sweet lemon-ish, “Kenneth Clark, if you had your choice of being a black South African or a white South African -- with, you know, some status, obviously, in South Africa today -- which would you choose?” -- I don't think there'd be any question in my mind; I'd say, “I want to be a black South African.”

And if they would say to me, “Why?”, I'd say, “Well, because first, immediately I would be more secure and stable as a person, as a human being. And the immediate future would be clearly on my side.”

Q:

To come back and pick up your education --

Clark:

We are going to have to talk more about South Africa, because I'm 61, and I'd sort of assumed that at 61, you don't have major new experiences that affect your perspective of life. But that's not quite true, because this was an experience that broadened my view of human beings, and the complexities of human social interactions in society. It taught me something.

Q:

Fine. We'll come back to that and we'll devote as much time as you'd like to give it.

Clark:

Sure.

Q:

I believe you mentioned, when you came back from your year of schooling in Jamaica, that you were skipped a grade?





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help