COMMENTARY | Morgan Freeman sat down with Piers Morgan recently for an interview. The topic, naturally, turned toward politics. The star of “Shawshank Redemption,” “Deep Impact” and “Glory” proceeded to kick a great many people in the groin.
According to Newsbusters:
“Freeman: Their stated policy, publicly stated, is to do whatever it takes to see to it that Obama only serves one term. What’s, what does that, what underlines that? ‘Screw the country. We’re going to whatever we do to get this black man, we can, we’re going to do whatever we can to get this black man outta here.’
Morgan: But is that necessarily a racist thing?
Freeman: It is a racist thing.”
Hollywood actors saying hateful things is not a new phenomenon. When someone like Janeane Garofalo rants that opposition to President Barack Obama is, “All about hating on the black man,” one rolls one’s eyes; Garofalo is a pinhead, in the opinion of many people, and what comes out of her mouth cannot be taken seriously.
But, et te Morgan Freeman? The tea party is racist? Seriously?
This kind of bigotry and hate coming from a man who has lent such depth to the roles he has played in jarring, to say the least. Freeman has, however, whether he knows it or not, provided an object lesson of the wages of prejudice, that being his against the members of the tea party. Hearing the words he spoke come out of his mouth was a hurtful experience indeed, much like an African-American in the 1950s discovering a cross burning in his front yard or a Jew in 1930s Nazi Germany finding a sign on his shop saying, “Kauft nicht bei Juden!”
The bitter irony is that Freeman played an American president in the film “Deep Impact.” He played him with a depth of feeling and quiet compassion that put the current occupant of the White House to shame. His president was Lincoln reborn, almost crushed under the burden of perhaps presiding over the end of the world and certainly the deaths of tens of millions of his people. I remember discussing this with my wife and opining that was a president one might have voted for.
But of course, an actor is not the people he plays. Freeman certainly proved that when he made his hate filled, bigoted comments to Piers Morgan. For shame.
Something seems to have happened to Freeman somewhere along the way. Pajamas Media has an old Sixty Minutes video in which Freeman opines to Mike Wallace that the idea of a “Black History Month” is absurd. Black History is American history. He said, and ought not to be ghettoized.
And how to deal with racism? Freeman said, stop talking about it and deal with one another as human beings.
I wonder what happened to that guy?
Source: Morgan Freeman: Obama Made Racism Worse, Tea Party Will Do ‘Whatever [It] Can To Get This Black Man Outta Here’, Noel Sheppard, News Busters, Sept. 23, 2011
Morgan Freeman Admits Hollywood has Failed Its Progressive Mission, Ed Driscoll, Pajamas Media, Sept, 23, 2011