December 23, 2005

Not a month

On a CBS interview last week, Morgan Freeman, that superb actor (Se7en, the fabulous The Shawshank Redemption, Glory, Million Dollar Baby, Amistad, and Driving Miss Daisy, among many other films) was asked about "Black History Month".

His reply: "You're going to relegate my history to a month? I don't want a black history month. Black history is American history."

And he also told his interviewer: "I am going to stop calling you a white man and I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man."

Amen to that. Lessons for closer to home, maybe?

Though I wonder why his IMDB biography describes him as "calmly demeaning".

6 comments:

asuph said...

amen to that!

lessons closer to home? if we want to learn them, yes..

asuph

Suhail said...

Your new(to me) tagline is awesome! Typist, eh? :-)

wise donkey said...

so whoose perogative should it be? what if the interviewer had refused to acknowledge Mr.Freeman as a "black man".

http://dcubed.blogspot.com/2005/11/is-all.html ?

Michael Bains said...

Yes, I've noticed that Mr Freeman is a man. A damn good lookin' one at that.

I prefer (conscious decision stuff...) to emulate his style over his skin color. Trying to get as dark-skinned as he is only made me red, in pain and leathery. Practicing bits of his style has given me freedom and (some) success on stage on and in real life.

Thanks for the attention to this detail.

Kartik said...

There's a huge fuss going on about this now - I'm not aware if its origin had anything to do with this comment, but a number of other prominent people have voiced their opinions against a "Black History Month". I agree (though nowhere that prominent).

antickpix said...

hmm..some people pointed out (facetiously) that Black history month is Febuary, the shortest month on the calender year.

But, Morgan Freeman...the man has played the Prez and God. He's cool and above it all.