On Tea Party, Morgan Freeman Should Follow His Past Advice
Where’s the Morgan Freeman who once called for an end to condescending racial hand-wringing? Where’s the Morgan Freeman who once stunned Mike Wallace by calling Black History Month “ridiculous”?
You’re gonna relegate my history to a month?… I don’t want a Black History Month. Black history is American history… Stop talking about [racism]. I’m gonna stop calling you a white man, and I’m gonna ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman.
That venerable actor appears to be gone, replaced by a bitter doppelganger engaged in the very race-baiting he once decried.
Last month saw the broadcast of an interview with Freeman by CNN’s Piers Morgan:
… Morgan asked the actor, “Has Obama helped the process of eradicating racism or has it, in a strange way, made it worse?”
“Made it worse. Made it worse,” Freeman replied. “The tea partiers who are controlling the Republican party … their stated policy, publicly stated, is to do whatever it takes to see to it that Obama only serves one term. What underlines that? Screw the country. We’re going to do whatever we can to get this black man out of here.”
Freeman cited no comment or action which supports his characterization of the Tea Party. Instead he perpetuated the Left’s long-standing argument from intimidation, that any opposition to President Obama or his policies is self-evidently racist:
Dismissing Morgan’s suggestion that the Tea Party’s motivations might be merely political, Freeman asserted, “It is a racist thing.”
Freeman’s take on the Tea Party is uniquely disappointing. Coming from a man who has clearly thought outside the leftist box, rejected the condescension of lowered expectations, and recognized the cultural apartheid of race-based history, it is particularly disheartening to see the unfounded assumption that political disagreement is motivated by bigotry.
Such assumptions, asserted as self-evident fact, preclude much needed debate on the issues of the day. One cannot confront an adversary they do not understand. Even if Freeman fundamentally disagrees with every principle the Tea Party upholds, he fails to argue against those principles by imputing distasteful motives.
Alas, this has become the standard mode of attack against the Tea Party. Rather than engage on the issues, detractors leap straight to name-calling. When it’s not an accusation of racism, it’s one of stupidity, partisanship, or malice:
Gov. Deval Patrick, the first black governor of Massachusetts, said it’s not clear to him that racism is motivating the Tea Party.
“I can tell you that it’s clear from the evidence that the, ‘To heck with the interests of the common good, whatever we need to do to derail this presidency,’ has characterized some if not all Tea Party behavior in the United States. There’s no doubt about it,” he told a local Boston radio show, according to the Boston Globe.
Such has been the Left’s talking point since the debt ceiling debate. The Tea Party has taken the country hostage. Tea Partiers are economic terrorists. The Tea Party is the enemy.
Quote: “he perpetuated the Left’s long-standing argument from intimidation, that any opposition to President Obama or his policies is self-evidently racist.”
I’m surprised that nobody comments on what to me seems obvious. Why do these people see any opposition to Obama as racist? Because they can cite no reason for supporting him other than his skin colour, and hence they assume that all opposition is for the same reason. In other words, they are racists who judge everyone else by their own measure.
I tried to view the video but got a message that the uploader has not made this video available in your country. Hmm, I’m a subscriber to Pajamas Media. Why not include my country (Israel)? Lots of Americans living here too.
Sorry you’re having trouble. That’s a YouTube video which we’ve embedded. Pajamas Media has no control over its regional restrictions. You can probably find the same video through other means by Googling “Morgan Freeman Piers Morgan”.
Every time a conservative says or does anything that somebody in the media, or some opposition researcher, can twist around or “spin” to make the conservative appear “racist” – the conservative is blackmailed into groveling and explaining and apologizing.
Where’s the apology from Morgan Freeman?
America’s worst race problem is obviously Black racism against Whites. Even Herman Cain played the race card against Perry when it suited his ambition. For 40 years, Blacks have been fed a steady diet of guilt tripping Whites when they want something, and I truly believe the majority have played the race card, even if rarely.
They ALL use it. Even over stupid stuff, they ALL use it.
morgan freeman is like so many other hollywood types, he thinks what he says and thinks meen something to the rest of us. well it does. it now meens like so many others he is now banned from apearing on my television,
Pity that a man of the stature of Freeman seems to be brainwashed by Media Matters and other cesspools like MoveOn.com. The left know that they have a losing hand in Obama. More and more, day after day, Obama is falling in the polls because people just don’t like or believe him anymore. So all the far left can do is call us names and insult us. Unfortunately, people like Freeman are actually believing the lies that are being told by the far left, and shame on him for that. Shame on him for not doing at least a little research, because, as a public figure, I thought he would be smart enough not to listen to only one point of view. Had he done some research, he would have found out that the average Tea Party member is not only NOT a racist, but a lot more sensible, well-informed, and educated than the anarchists you see protesting on Wall Street these days. Oh, and by the way, when the Tea Party had a masssive protest in Washington, DC, there was not A SINGLE arrest and there was NO destruction of public property. The Police in Washington, DC, even commented that it was the cleanest and most polite protest they had ever seen. Can’t say the same thing about the bums protesting on Wall Street, where hundreds have been arrested and much public property has been defaced and damaged.
Mr. Freeman, do a little research before you start condemning people. Perhaps the Tea Parties don’t like Obama because he is a lousy president and is spending us into oblivion, and NOT because we care about what skin color he is. Like I said, it may do you a lot of good if you go to some Tea Party meetings and meet some members. You might be shocked to find out that your friends on the far left are actually wrong about us, even though we’ve been called every name in the book.
Isn’t that the way it always goes? Celebrities call for something, but they only mean it in the context of the larger society. As ‘elitists’ they are expemt from what they would demand that ‘we’ do.
Morgan Freeman is an old fool, like Woody Allen, calling other people names because he’s ashamed of himself.
Senility is a big leveler.
Like a tapeworm to its host…Institutional racists like the CBC, NAACP, Rainbow Coalition, etc.. ad nauseum depends as much on racism for its very existence as liberal institutions, like the democrat party, academia, etc..depends upon blacks for theirs. Both groups are parasites….who feed off of a common host, the American taxpayor…Neither has virtue, nor does either recognize and respect “the individual”….Its all about the collective…beit, tribal (black), ideological (progressive) or otherwise dependent (taxpayor-based beneficiary)….
Race hustlers make actual racists out of tolerant whites. Believe me, I know. That said: It ain’t the color Morgan … it’s the attitude. Be true to American principals or be hated. (American principals: Loyalty to God, Family and Country … resulting in honesty, industry, prudence, temperance etc.)
Woot! Yeah! I second what Scott said!
Well Stated!
Just make it “principles” for me, please, and I will join the chorus.
I take no advice from a guy whose ‘profession’ is told what to wear, say, act, portray etc., adding insult to injury, then considered an ‘artist’.
Get schizophrenics as actors, actresses they’d be far more ‘believable’ with a smidgen of the costs of those shallow narcissists in Lala land.
Artist.. puhlease.
The dude’s a child molester of his own kin. Freeman’s thee punchline to every southern-incest laced joke to come about.
He’s as much a phony as the boy-king he helped put in the WH.
exactly; giving credence to those, who make a living parroting, mimicking and following directions, is folly the left has been using to manipulate a narrative for many decades
Like many “celebrities” (and others), Freeman uses left wing blather to shield himself from criticism of his personal pecadilloes. If all the fakes abandoned the left, there’d hardly be anyone left.
Yes, I’ve heard from a couple of sources that it’s impossible to work in Hollywood unless you’re a super liberal (or at least act like one)
All great actors get old. This one has, and lest you think I denigrate old people, all of us will get our turn at this. Give the guy a break, he has seen a lot in his life and he is so puffed up proud that Obama won the Presidency that he can’t see the damage that the Obama Presidency is doing to our country.
There is mostly silence on the horrors taking place in Libya. Will Morgan Freeman use his celebrity status to speak out for blacks in Libya?
SILENCE IS CONSENT
We need another Martin Luther King!
STOP the GENOCIDE of Blacks by the U.S. backed Libya rebels!
The Obama-supported rebels left in charge are now conducting a “large scale cleaning in the areas under their control with the extermination of all blacks in the capital”, according to The Independent.
Barbaric atrocities, kidnappings and ruthless genocide of blacks in Libya by US/France/NATO backed Al-Qaeda linked rebels has been going on for months.
US/NATO who have waged war for months for the Al-Qaeda
linked rebels-who murder our troops in Iraq-are RESPONSIBLE for stopping the genocide.
US/NATO are also responsible for rescuing the
many terrified blacks kidnapped by the rebels, including the kidnapped black children who have been horrifically abused by the black-hater Muslim rebels.
Blacks must have human rights!
STOP THE GENOCIDE!
Our current POTUS has a long history of stirring up racial hatred as a community organizer. It is a sad day when such an intelligent and obviously accomplished actor (full disclosure: Freeman is one of my all time favorite actors–just exceptional) as Freeman falls for the hate mongering. For a group of people with such a storied history of real racism against them to now display that very racism as a group against others is a very sad day in America.
Funny the black americans I meet at “tea parties” also believe they are “taxed enough already”. Is there something racist about wanting to keep your hard earned money out of the hands of irresponsible politicians?
Post number 1. Anat, you hit the nail on the head!
Racism must be getting pretty bad in the U.S. According to the Daily Rash, members of the Congressional Black Caucus appeared on the Maury Povich show and said they are determined to make it a hate crime when Tea Party members of congress hang a black person. http://www.thedailyrash.com/congressional-black-caucus-to-make-tea-party-hangings-a-hate-crime
Let me guess. Was this during the Clinton years?
I believe it was 2008.
Morgan Freeman and his buddies seem to conveniently forget the fact that there is no racism bu Blackism in America today. Because he is black, is Obama beyond criticism? Or do we have to have HANDLE WITH CARE policy? During the eight years of Bush, black activists along with liberals were calling him all sorts of names and no White Conservative came out against them. Now, a genuine peoples movement, TEA Party has gained credibility and voice, liberals and some blacks are worried. There are blacks in the TEA Party who believe in empowerment not entitlement. Blacks have been kept in poverty by the politicians by handouts and took their ability to find or keep jobs. People like Sharpton feeds on blacks like cockroaches feeding on left out food.
Radical Racists: Obama, Holder, and the NBPP
It’s turning out that the president of the United States, the Attorney General of the United States, and the New Black Panther Party have much more in common than race. Call it recompense, call it reparations, that commonality is almost as ugly and damnable as any crimes committed by the Ku Klux Klan.
Barack Hussein Obama has undertaken prodigious efforts to appear the president of all the people regardless of race and an even greater effort to conceal his radical, racist past. Eric Himpton Holder has been more forthcoming in his racism and active discrimination toward white Americans without conceding his bigotry. The New Black Panther Party, founded on black racism and distinguished from the old Black Panthers only by the fact most have not yet been tried and convicted, is more brazenly ingenuous about its radical racism.
No matter Obama’s attempts to hide who and what he is, no matter Holder’s accidental admissions, if nothing else, Obama and Holder could learn a great deal about forthrightness from the NBPP. Their learning curve aside, recent and past revelations have now linked all of them.
After his election, Obama told America he has been running for the presidency since kindergarten. Toward that end, he campaigned in Selma, Alabama in March, 2007. Nothing wrong with that; he campaigned in 57 of America’s 58 states so Alabama most likely was one of them.
What is very wrong is that photos depicting him marching and speaking with NBPP National Chief Malik Zulu Shabazz and other members of the New Black Panther Party were quashed and hidden from the American public for four years by Obama’s mainstream media.
That oversight could readily be attributable to journalistic negligence–or to a covert attempt to portray their hero, their anointed one, as Everyman, a universal man who represented all of America, black, white, yellow and everyone in between, who didn’t have a racist bone in his body. . .
Not unsurprisingly, like those damning 2007 photos, that evidence of “reverse racism” has been suppressed by Obama’s media.
Obama’s appointment of fellow African-American Eric Holder as attorney general should have provided the clue that neither Obama nor his new appointee were on the same page as the majority of Americans.
Eric Holder’s background of facilitating Bill Clinton’s pardon of fugitive Marc Rich, defending the terrorist Ejército Popular Boricua, negotiating a settlement in the case of Chiquita Brands paying off terrorists, his firm’s representation of Guantanomo accused terrorists, etc., were a dead giveaway that Holder was closer to being a terrorist himself than qualified to be the attorney general of the United States.
Obama’s MSM deftly hid those pretty damned relevant details on Holder’s résumé. . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5645.)
He’s a convincing actor merely because of certain indefinable traits of bone structure, neuromuscular gifts (I think here of the ability to raise only one eyebrow), long bone ratios that affect the way you walk and turn, symmetries and asymmetries of bodily features and dimensions which can please or displease onlookers . . . All of which make for actors that we love.
Not a scintilla of common sense or anything above native intelligence is required. That’s why failing and aging actors like Freeman take money to incite race wars for a failing politician rather than carry on. He marries his 45 year younger granddaughter for the same grisly reason.
Listen up, African-Americans! This is your idol.
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my best friend’s mom makes $77 an hour on the computer. She has been out of job for 9 months but last month her check was $7487 just working on the computer for a few hours. Read about it here LazyCash4._c3o$m
“[T]he homosexual issue will remain, until we end legal abortions.” ?? Neither homosexuality nor abortion is a topic of discussion for any TEA Party adherent I’ve ever seen or read. And THAT is why no self-respecting American should hate or fear the TEA Party. One might disagree with the TEA Party because he has bought into the concept that “it takes a village,” but that would be the only reason to disagree with TEA Party goals.