People have said those things, in different words, in this very thread. Just read over it again. It's people saying that Morgan Freeman isn't in a position to talk about race because he's rich. Is that not the case?
2/4/2010 10:32:40 AM
2/4/2010 10:32:41 AM
Yes, you're right. All the clamor in this thread is about keeping black people from voting Republican. Just admit it ShinAntonio - you're only posting because you're afraid of losing the black vote.
2/4/2010 10:41:16 AM
2/4/2010 10:59:13 AM
2/4/2010 11:47:56 AM
The criticism is that Morgan Freeman is probably no longer subject to some of the discrimination poor blacks are, because, well, he has money.It's easy to be insulated from shitheads when you have a boatload of cash[Edited on February 4, 2010 at 1:33 PM. Reason : .]
2/4/2010 1:32:52 PM
2/4/2010 2:09:24 PM
2/4/2010 2:36:58 PM
^So maybe it's more socioeconomic status than race. There are plenty of other people who live paycheck to paycheck.
2/4/2010 2:40:49 PM
2/4/2010 2:43:48 PM
2/4/2010 2:46:01 PM
2/4/2010 2:48:57 PM
2/4/2010 2:55:43 PM
This shit is really old, isn't it?Anyway, I agree with Morgan Freeman in that we need to stop talking about race/racism to the point that it fucks with children's egos/psyches. I read a study of black teenage males and their perceptions of HIV/AIDS. The study included interviews with students at a DC high school. Over half the boys claimed that they believed black people and white people had the disease at the same rate. They dismissed the staggering statistics, which proved a racial disparity, by claiming that white people had fabricated the numbers in order to make black people look bad. They had been so thoroughly inculcated with the narrative of victimization/racism (white people are always trying to screw us!) that they were unwilling/unable to acknowledge reality.The perception of perpetual victimhood (even when it's real!) can be overwhelmingly disempowering.But we can't just stop talking about race/racism. I mean, how can we all just stop talking about something that affects us all the time? That's impossible. Plus, like ShinAntonio said, not talking about a problem has never been a solution to it.[Edited on February 4, 2010 at 3:15 PM. Reason : minus a p]
2/4/2010 3:11:57 PM
2/4/2010 3:16:32 PM
2/4/2010 3:19:47 PM
Let people hate whomever the fuck they want for whatever reason they want and only punish people for their actions. Get rid of laws that promote inequality. Harshly enforce protected classes, equal opportunity, and laws that promote equality under the law.Then you can stop worry about what that comment meant, or what that flag means. You don't like the fact that an entertainer is racist? Stop supporting him. Enough people don't like racism that pretty much anyone in public will be hanged if they make a racist comment (see Michael Richards), so why spend any effort trying to change them?Why is the end goal a society of joy joy happiness where everyone loves each other?
2/4/2010 3:21:49 PM
2/4/2010 3:36:12 PM
2/4/2010 3:40:31 PM
If someone doesn't want to be identified by their skin color, they shouldn't identify themselves by their skin color.
2/4/2010 4:16:26 PM
Morgans point is dead-on. Black history is American history. The way Black History Month is set up now only relegates these achievements to one month out of the year. It's ridiculus. Remember MLK's dream? Do any of you really think this is what he had in mind? Of course not!Some of you are arguing that because Morgan is rich, he dosent feel the effects of racism. That, I say, has nothing to do with the topic at hand. So, your reasoning is that one must feel the effects of racism in order to see the point of black history month? Seriously......how stupid can you be?[Edited on February 4, 2010 at 5:08 PM. Reason : .]
2/4/2010 5:07:04 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDD-6BB2nkoOne of the related videos from the OP.Teenage girl makes video saying she hates Black History Month (but not Black history) and gets 20,000+ comments and 34 video comments!
2/4/2010 6:13:11 PM
2/4/2010 6:31:44 PM
Lumex, people don’t pop out the womb identifying themselves by race. Race is a social construct. So, by definition, it is imposed on us, forced on us. You can decline to identify on forms and applications and stuff, but when you walk around, and people look at you, there’s no question that you are identified by race.bigun20, Freeman has made a lot more comments than just a one-off about black history month. I think that’s what people are talking about when they question how his background informs his opinions. Really, nobody cares about black history month. To me, it’s just a time when McDonald’s/Coca-Cola try to sell me stuff with inspiring tidbits about black people.Furthermore, you should have stopped before your silliness about what would MLK want. Black history month has been around since before Martin Luther King, Jr. was born. I suspect you may view it as some feel-good holiday instituted by liberals in the late 80s or something. It’s not. At one time, it served an important purpose:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_History_Month
2/4/2010 7:52:23 PM
look ive said it before and ill say it again. when americans teach not about BLACK HISTORY as if its one big hunk of history and instead teach about GREAT INDIVIDUALS we will get...GREAT INDIVIDUALS!American public schools force people to learn about idiots like malcome x and other actual all out marxists but noone even dares to teach the truthful powerful story of SB FULLER.http://www.issues-views.com/index.php/sect/1000/article/1003Raised in poverty in Louisiana, the young Fuller began work as a door-to-door salesman. With only a sixth grade education, he possessed a drive and a belief in his abilities which subdued virtually every obstacle placed in his path by racial discrimination. Fuller parlayed his innate intelligence and organizing skill into a multimillion dollar conglomerate of companies throughout the United States. He became a leader in the sales of cosmetics, starting his first cosmetics firm, the Fuller Products Company, in 1935, with $25. He ultimately owned or controlled eight other corporations, which included the Courier newspaper chain [with papers in Pittsburgh, Chicago, New York and Detroit], a Chicago department store, and a New York real estate trust.Only the strange, ironic twistings and turnings of events unique to the American black experience could find a man like Fuller ostracized by his own people. Not content with the malicious wars waged against Fuller's businesses throughout the years by the Ku Klux Klan and White Citizens Councils in the South, prominent blacks were to publicly condemn and shun him, and urge others to do the same. Branded in the 1960s as an "Uncle Tom" (and sometimes with worse epithets) by the leading luminaries of the civil rights establishment, Fuller's companies were boycotted by the black masses.Fuller's sin? He had refused to follow the civil rights "party line" as dictated by the reigning black and white notables of the day. For this heretical behavior, he incurred public censure at the hands of a powerful clique.In 1963, in a speech delivered to the National Association of Manufacturers (of which he was the first black member), Fuller stated that blacks would achieve success and prosperity if they worked harder and attained good educations, and showed more initiative in business enterprise. Fuller claimed that, even more than racial barriers, it was a "lack of understanding of the capitalist system" that kept blacks from making economic progress. In an interview later that year, Fuller claimed that when blacks finally concentrate on developing themselves so that they excel in what they do, they will then find that they have no real problems. He claimed that blacks were left behind economically because "they have nothing to sell."if you dont toe the politically correct line and actually teach about how FREE ENTERPRISE not GOVERNMENT makes people better you are gonna fail! you lie about history.
2/4/2010 8:57:08 PM
The only black people they teach about in public schools is MLK jr. and George Washington Carver.I don't know what fantasy land you live in where they teach any accurate information about Malcolm X.And "FREE ENTERPRISE" and "GOVERNMENT" aren't opposing concepts.[Edited on February 4, 2010 at 9:14 PM. Reason : ]
2/4/2010 9:14:19 PM
lol meet racism with more racism
2/4/2010 9:16:27 PM
Places like france, spain, britain and ireland that are more similar to us have the problems but the more socialist nations like norway and sweden don't have opressed minorities, not institutional oprssion at least.
2/4/2010 9:27:07 PM
Just to be clear, as far as I can tell there are three points made by Freeman in the video:(1) Black History Month should be done away with and incorporated into the wider scope of American History.(2) People should stop referring to each other and themselves by race and just see each other as people.(3) The only way race is going to go away is if people quit talking about it.I agree with (1), although in practice this would largely result in the "black experience" being it's own separate section for most of American history because of our history with segregation, Jim Crow, and slavery.(2) sounds nice in principle (I think I even tried to live by that for like a week), but doesn't really work for most people in practice. You can identify however you like, but the overwhelming majority of people (of any color) will still see and react to your skin color. It also sounds a lot like when people tell me "I don't see color" even though their behavior contradicts it directly when they assume I know some rap song, or that I like some movie just because it has black people in it, or tell me I kind of look like a thug when I wear a tobaggan (or for you Yankees, a knit cap) etc. There also many, many contexts in which skin color is entirely relevant to the conversation like your culture, your ancestors, what diseases you're at a high risk for, etc. Eventually trying to talk around it becomes useless.But it could work for Morgan Freeman because (and this goes back to the fame/fortune thing) he's Morgan freaking Freeman. He has one of the most recognizable faces and voices in the world. I'd argue most people don't see a black man when they look at him because he's so iconic.I consider (3) utterly ridiculous because it's... utterly ridiculous. I've never heard of any cause taking care of itself because people quit talking about it.
2/4/2010 10:02:11 PM
2/4/2010 10:03:06 PM
mambagrl, Norway and Sweden are virtually 100 percent homogeneous compared to the US. They don't have oppressed minorities because they don't have minorities.HOOPS MALONE, you'll be happy to know I found SB Fuller and AG Gaston in Alabama's course of study: http://tinyurl.com/yk8cntcBut moron is right. We really don't study contemporary black figures at all in school...the fact that we don't get into the multiple perspectives and philosophical debates among black elites isn't surprising.[Edited on February 4, 2010 at 10:35 PM. Reason : homogeneous. Thanks, JCASHFAN!]
2/4/2010 10:19:51 PM
2/4/2010 10:41:07 PM
2/4/2010 10:50:53 PM
I think we fucked up by engaging mambagrl. He or she has only made a few posts, and I'm already at my breaking point.
2/4/2010 10:55:19 PM
^ haIt's common for people her age to be similarly naive... kids always think they know everything
2/4/2010 10:57:40 PM
Ummm, no the person who said that to me admitted that my race was part of the reason he said that. Nice try though.And "looked black"? What does that even mean?
2/4/2010 10:58:15 PM
2/4/2010 11:01:38 PM
2/5/2010 2:04:08 AM
I'm still gonna disregard morgan fucking freeman because he's a creepy old fuck having an affair with his wife's granddaughter.also he's another ridiculously rich mofuckin actor who hasn't lived in the real world for 20 years or so.
2/5/2010 3:30:16 AM
2/5/2010 4:08:19 AM
2/5/2010 9:32:30 AM
Race is more than skin color... oh wait, that isn't PC to say so I shouldn't.
2/5/2010 10:46:26 AM
Is it more than skin color? Race is barely has a coherent definition in today's world where people of all different backgrounds are having children together.
2/5/2010 10:50:31 AM
^^^^"virtually," "compared to the US"I'm tricky with words.I know they have new immigrants--I remember one thread about some Nordickish country banning minarets and shit. Uh oh, mambagrl's theory is shot to hell!^,^^^
2/5/2010 2:41:07 PM
switzerland is not in northern europe sorry. thats pretty cheap anyway bridget. banning minerets is hardly "minority oppression". everyone is treated equal in switzerland anyway. Ya this would be a form of religious oppression but they are not a very religious society anway and are such major feminists that they don't fancy islam too well for making women cover up. Its going to be hard for any liberal feminist society to accept islam.don't mind me though, i'm sure sweden and norway would have full blown segregation if they weren't 105% nordish populations.
2/5/2010 3:32:51 PM
^AHA, I couldn't remember which country it was--only that I thought it was white as fuck. Anyway, the location of the country wasn't your argument:
2/5/2010 4:16:45 PM
When a culture is misogynistic does it not deserved to be oppressed?(If no, then why try changing racists for their other-race-hating ways?)
2/5/2010 4:23:36 PM
Religious oppression is totally unacceptable. I'll talk shit about Islam, Christianity, and Judaism all day, but you can't oppress people (in this instance, deny their right to build shit) based on what they believe. We've tried it several times before, and things got really ugly.
2/5/2010 4:35:39 PM
Maybe oppressed was the wrong word.Why aren't we reacting to fundamentalist sexism in Islam and Christianity in the same way that we are racism in America? Is it because it's written in a holy book that it's cool to be a dick to women?Racism is abhorrent but those zany fundamentalists, they're just wacky!You're coming down on Switzerland for coming down on Muslims for being misogynists, but at the same time come down on racists for being racist.[Edited on February 5, 2010 at 4:42 PM. Reason : islams. ]
2/5/2010 4:40:09 PM
If there are misogyny issues, you have to address them with the law like you do anything else. If a woman gets stoned, you arrest the offenders for some kind of assault or murder if she doesn't survive, but you can't prejudge people and oppress them for their beliefs. My friend attended a crazy misogynistic wedding (Christian wedding) that turned her stomach, but until the groom leans back and pops his bride in the face or takes her car and her cell phone so she can't contact the outside the world, the police/society can't immediately do anything about it.To a certain extent, we do address fundamental sexism in religion in that we address sexism in general. Women's shelters don't overlook women because of their religion, and we are fairly outspoken in condemning certain religious practices in the states and throughout the world. But we do have to avoid getting too uppity against a certain religion because, like I said, it can have some fairly nasty outcomes.We take the slow education/protesting approach...since it would cause all sorts of problems to bust up in a Church like, "WTF did that pastor just say? Ah, nah, playa, fuck your right to freedom of religion and speech! We shutting this bitch down, and your ass is going to jail."[Edited on February 5, 2010 at 4:50 PM. Reason : Added "immediately."]
2/5/2010 4:49:39 PM