Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman has turned on Black History Month and declared he “detests it.”
The Hollywood star known for his roles in The Shawshank Redemption and The Dark Knight trilogy made plain his antipathy in an interview, critically appraising the annual event that takes place every February across the country.
Freeman told Variety in an exchange with journalist Marta Balaga the very idea makes his “teeth itch” and he prefers the broader sweep of the entire arc of American history:
I detest it. The mere idea of it. You are going to give me the shortest month in a year? And you are going to celebrate ‘my’ history?! This whole idea makes my teeth itch. It’s not right.
My history is American history.
It’s the one thing in this world I am interested in, beyond making money, having a good time and getting enough sleep.
Black History Month has been in the actor’s sights before, admitting last year he finds the idea and the term African-American an “insult,” as Breitbart News reported.
“Two things I can say publicly that I do not like. Black History Month is an insult. You’re going to relegate my history to a month?” he told The Sunday Times’s Culture magazine.
File/Morgan Freeman onstage during the 51st NAACP Image Awards, Presented by BET, at Pasadena Civic Auditorium on February 22, 2020 in Pasadena, California. (Paras Griffin/Getty for BET)
“Also ‘African-American’ is an insult. I don’t subscribe to that title. Black people have had different titles all the way back to the n-word and I do not know how these things get such a grip, but everyone uses ‘African-American’.”
The Oscar-winning Million Dollar Baby star also spoke out against Black History Month almost 20 years ago.
In a perennially-viral 2005 interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes, Freeman told correspondent Mike Wallace, “I don’t want a Black History Month.”
When asked by Wallace “how are we going to get rid of racism,” Freeman replied: “Stop talking about it.”
Ten years later, the actor again expanded his thoughts on the subject.
“If we accept that… in fact we are all bigots, that we are hardwired to be biased, then we can accept that, ‘OK, that’s going to be the first thing in our brains, but the second thing in our brains can be our cautious efforts at acceptance,’” he said.
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