Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman has explained why he’s not enthusiastic about Black History Month or the term “African American”.
“Black History Month is an insult. You’re going to ban my story for a month?” he asked in an interview with the Sunday Times published on Saturday.
“Even ‘African American’ is an insult. I don’t subscribe to this title,” Freeman continued. “Black people have had different titles all the way back to the N-word and I don’t know how that gets to grips with, but everyone uses ‘African American.'”
“What does it really mean?” he asked. “Most black people in this part of the world are mixed race. And you say Africa as if it were a country when it is a continent, like Europe.”
To underscore his point, Freeman noted how “people talk about Irish-Americans or Italian-Americans, not Euro-Americans”.
Freeman made the same point nearly two decades ago in 2005, when he called the annual celebration of Black History Month in the United States every February “ridiculous.”
“You will ban my story for a month?” he asked in a 60 Minutes interview with Mike Wallace. “What are you doing with yours? What month is White History Month?”
When Wallace said he was Jewish, Freeman asked if he would like to have Jewish history month. Wallace said he didn’t.
“Oh, why not? Why not? You don’t want one? Me neither,” Freeman replied. “I don’t want Black History Month. Black history is American history.”
“How do we get rid of racism?” asked Wallace Freeman, who stars in new film A Good Person opposite Florence Pugh.
“Stop talking about it,” the actor replied. “I will stop calling you white and I will ask you to stop calling me black.”