Morgan Freeman blasts Black-history month as divisive to all Americans

Actor Morgan Freeman has a solution to the problem of racism – "Stop talking about it!"

In a CBS News' 60 Minutes profile of the Oscar-winning actor scheduled to air tonight, Freeman tells Mike Wallace labels like "white" and "black" are an obstacle to defeating racism.

The actor also criticizes Black History Month, saying setting aside a special month actually segregates black history from American history. Calling the idea "ridiculous," Freeman notes there's no "white history month."

"You're going to relegate my history to a month?" Freeman asks Wallace. "I don't want a black history month. Black history is American history," he says.

Back in October Joan Rivers got into a blowout with Dakus Howe, a Trinidad-born social commentator on BBC over being called a racist for saying, "I'm so, so bored of race. I think people should inter-marry. Everybody should be part this, part that and part everything. Race doesn't mean a damn thing. Everybody should just relax, take the best of their cultures and move forward."

Now Morgan Freeman is voicing similar thoughts as Ms. Rivers. These are thoughts common to most people today. Yet listening to Jessie Jackson, Farrakhan, some at the NAACP and others, one would think otherwise. Much of what is passed of as divercity is really just institutionalizing racial division. Both Mr. Freeman and Ms. Rivers are correct. Just ignore race, stop bringing it up because it means nothing.

Each succeeding generation in the US is losing its race conscienceness. The great impediment to a colorblind society are the media and the government. Both automatically separate people by their demographic and highlight differences. White voters, Women voters, African-American voters, Hispanic voters, and on and on. Academia has Women's studies, African-American studies etc. Government forms and programs list an endless variety of groups that have specific laws. People who have spoke against such things have been vilified as racist. The time is here to follow the lead of these two celebrities and just drop it.

I've heard is said that Africans know Americans when they meet them regardless of their color. That is because we are a distinctive people such their color is irrelevant to our identity. We have only begun to move into a colorblind society, but we are way ahead of the rest of the world.

La Shawn Barber turned down by Baltimore Sun for reaction to Freeman's statements
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