Posted on 12/18/2005 11:53:14 AM PST by wagglebee
Actor Morgan Freeman has a solution to the problem of racism "Stop talking about it!"
In a CBS News' 60 Minutes profile of the Oscar-winning actor scheduled to air tonight, Freeman tells Mike Wallace labels like "white" and "black" are an obstacle to defeating racism.
"I am going to stop calling you a white man and I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man," he says. "I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman. You wouldn't say, 'Well, I know this white guy named Mike Wallace.' You know what I'm saying?"
The actor also criticizes Black History Month, saying setting aside a special month actually segregates black history from American history. Calling the idea "ridiculous," Freeman notes there's no "white history month."
"You're going to relegate my history to a month?" Freeman asks Wallace. "I don't want a black history month. Black history is American history," he says.
Freeman, who won his first Oscar for his role in "Million Dollar Baby" last year, has starred in numerous films, including "The Shawshank Redemption," "Unforgiven," "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," "The Bonfire of the Vanities," "Glory" and "Driving Miss Daisy."
(I can never understand why King never gets slapped for his racist depictions.)
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I can never understand why he never gets slapped period. The man is warped. Most of his movies have a recurring theme of portraying children as dark, mysterious or evil. So the impression King leaves is he was picked on in his youth(?) Put him in the Michael Moore, Me Against the World Club
"Get rid of the 'I am hurt', and you remove the hurt."
Epectitus or Cicero, can't remember which.
Roger that ~ Bump!
IMO, one of the finest actors living.
What he has stated is right. By emphasizing color you call attention to color above the nature of the person. Priorties are 180 degrees turned around from where they should be.
It heightens tensions among those whom race actually matters, and it actually serves the purpose of separately races from each other. If we're going to be separate let it be based on Character...beliefs...ideals....race should play no more of a role than eye color.
Well, there is only history, to be sure, but cultures that do not innovate do not contribute significantly to history. This is not necessarily racial, as some Semitic and Asian cultures seem to belong outside the stream of invention. At one time Islam was revolutionary, for example, and then at some point turned its back on the flow of time. The West cavorted in the idea that nature could be harnessed to its wishes, and suffered many upheavals in consequence of the desire to recast itself in religious, biological, psychic and digital terms. One may say that we were pursuing a fools dream, but we did make history.
Wow, a Stephen King story that was turned into a good movie! I guess that raises the total to two. =) (The Shining, of course, being the other one.)
Outstanding common sense
Outstanding Actor as well
Always knew Freeman had more sense about him than 90% of his Hollywierd counterparts.
"Different Seasons" is the only Stephen King book I've ever read, too. One of the other stories in the book was made into the movie, Stand By Me. Then there was that other story about the perfect little boy who turns into a homicidal maniac... disturbing! Whenever I hear reports of people who "just went off the deep end... he was such a good guy... then he just snapped," I remember that story. I think King got it right on the mark.
I think Morgan Freeman is an incredible actor, "Shawshank Redemption" is one of my all-time favorite movies even though it has Tim Robbins in it. I don't necessarily think that Denzel Washington is a "great" actor, but I've enjoyed every one of his movies.
I'd like to see both of them (and James Earl Jones too) start telling Blacks the truth the way Bill Cosby has been doing the past few years.
Indeed. One other celeb who's handled it properly is Tiger Woods. Calling him black or african American would insult his mother ... and maybe annoy his blond wife.
While we're on the topic, the term "African-American" has always bothered me. With everything blacks have given to this country, why do they only rate a "hyphen?" Aren't they as American as anybody else?
Freeman's expressed exactly how I feel about it. I remember years ago asking my daughter's school when they were going to have "White Male European History Month". Strangely enough, they didn't take that as a constructive suggestion, or maybe there weren't enough months left in the school year after "Women's History Month," "Gay History Month," "Muslim History Month," and "Rain Forest Appreciation Month."
Tiger Woods has handled fame and success with more class than anyone in recent memory. I though it was very telling earlier this year when he went through his "slump" while his father was dying, he never once tried to blame anyone for his playing or make any excuses, then he got refocused and came back roaring.
My ancestry is almost entirely Irish and they came to the US in the late 19th Century and it has never crossed my mind to identify myself as an "Irish-American." The ancestors of many (probably most) Blacks were in America before the Revolution, that gives them a "longer" history in the US than nearly all Americans who have never considered a hyphen.
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