I often go for walks in and near the apartment colony in Columbus, Ohio where I am staying presently. In one of these walks I met a young African American who is less than half my age, and who also lives in the same colony, and we have become friends.
We often go to Starbucks ( a chain of small restaurants in U.S.A. similar to our Coffee Houses in India ) together on his car for coffee. One day he pays for the coffee, and the next day I pay for it.
We have had long discussions on a variety of topics, normally I playing the role of the teacher. He has read many of my Facebook posts and blogs ( on justicekatju.blogspot.in ), and he told me that he has got a lot of knowledge from them.
He said that ordinarily he would have had to pay a lot of money to get this knowledge. I replied that my belief is that knowledge should be available and imparted free, and should not be for sale. I have done intense study in my life of various subjects for over half a century, and have also added to my book knowledge by discussions with some people having top class minds, and also by my own contemplation and reflections.
Now I am distributing the knowledge I have acquired to whoever wishes to learn, and I do this as a solemn duty, primarily to my own countrymen to raise their intellectual level, but also to anyone in the world who wishes to learn, and so there is no question of asking for money for this. I believe that education ( like healthcare ), at all levels, should be free. I am a teacher, not a merchant.
I asked him whether he has read my article ' What should American blacks and Indian dalits do ? ". He said he had. I told him that no doubt American blacks and Indian dalits have been oppressed and discriminated against in the past, and there is discrimination against them still, but now the time has come for them to stop crying like babies and move on. They must now prove that they are intellectually equal to whites and 'upper' castes by winning Nobel and other Prizes in science and mathematics.
Since they are still handicapped in many respects, they will have to work harder than whites and upper castes to achieve this, but they must do this, otherwise they will remain being looked down upon and discriminated against. As far as I know, not a single black or dalit has won a Nobel Prize in Physics, Chemistry or Medicine, or internationally recognized prizes in mathematics, genetic engineering, etc. To prove that they are intellectually equal they must now win these prizes. Winning physical competitions (, boxing, basketball, athletics, etc ) is not enough.
