Being black is so vital

Sunday Mail, April 22, 1973
ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA

By Helen Covernton

“Black is not a color-it is an experience,” says Prof. Scott Kennedy, of Brooklyn College, City University, New York.

It is a way of looking at things that white people do not understand, he says.

Prof. Kennedy, Fulbright scholar, authority on communications, theatre and speech is in Adelaide to teach us how black people think and to learn about the Aboriginal.

He is the first to take up a post at an Australian university.  He will be at Flinders University for 12 months.

Prof. Kennedy has his own black theatre in New York and believes the experience of being black is important.

He says, “Black think from a black viewpoint.  White think from a white viewpoint.  Much of the misery and ugliness of racial clashes have developed from this failure to understand each other.”

He believes part of the answer is communication and knowledge.  “A white cannot think as a black because his culture, climate and heritage is different; the black without education, cannot express his feelings in a form understandable to whites,” he says.

Prof. Kennedy argues that to understand the black experience, we must learn about their culture, history and heritage.

Conversely races must be taught to communicate with white.  

“We must show you how we think,” Prof. Kennedy said.  And this is precisely what Flinders students are learning from him.

Not only is he a highly qualified expert, a playwright, poet, musician and academic, he has talked with the black people in many countries and conversed with some of the most enlightened black thinkers of today.

He was one of the first Freedom riders of the 1960s, is a political active member of many nonviolent Black Power groups, and has worked with people like Martin Luther King, Edridge Cleaver, and Malcolm X.

Prof. Kennedy’s main objective is to bring respect and dignity to black people.

He has chosen theatre as his medium.  Partly because it is an ideal way of communicating: partly because the “soul” of races are found in their songs, music, and writings.

He says, “People who know their origins, culture and history are nearer to understanding themselves.  Those who understand can experience and share their joy and knowledge.”

Prof. Kennedy talks freely, sometimes breaking out into quotations written by negro writers, particularly when he feels their words can express more emotively what he is trying to say.

Black theatre, he says, is emotional and vibrant.

“It has gut-level impact.  Black people use their bodies, mind and soul in their work.  The theatre, often improvised, combines mime, song, dance, and words.  It generates excitement and invites participation.”

Re-printed for research purposes. Copyright remains with the original holder.