14 MAY 1965, Page 15

Miscegenation

SIR,-1 could be wrong: I could have misread Mr. H. B. Isher.wood's letter in the Spectator of May 7: but froni my cursory reading of the letter it seemed to me that Mr. Isherwood fancies himself as possessing superior intelligence to mt on the grounds that as an African I use 'my frontal lobes but little.'

Like *.% exual performance, racial superiority is the kind of subject on which theorists get away with murder. The only way that superior sexual perform- ance can be proved is in bed.

Since Mr. Isherwood fancies himself as superior to me in intelligence I have here the pleasure to challenge him to a public contest which, I would hope, would reveal each candidate's acquaintance with facts, something of his intelligence, as well as forensic skill. The fields of knowledge would en- compass economics, applied or 'theoretical, psycho- logy, applied or theoretical, metaphysics, physics, architecture, poetics, the history of art, neurology, anthropology, languages (European and Asiatic). as well as acquaintance with classical works of litera- ture in English, Japanese, Russian. Chinese and African.

If Mr. Isherwood fares badly in these enumerated fields we could engage in a physical contest in- volving club-fighting, boxing, judo, wrestling, except perhaps pistol or sword-fighting, in which 1 have no proven skill whatsoever. The only condition I would insist upon is that if Mr. Isherwood proves himself unequal to the task he should be prevailed upon to cease to write to newspapers for a period not lasting under a year.

9 Cross Keys Close. WI

LEWIS NKOSI