This article is part four of a series in celebration of a new, dynamic voice in Black America: the NUBIANO Exchange. Brace yourself for the NUBIANO experience. 
by Tyran Kai Steward
It appears Morgan Freeman has been drinking the same Kool-Aid, err, Veuve Clicquot that Bill Cosby has been consuming, picking up where the famed comedian left off with remarks that are not only shortsighted but perfunctory as well.
In a 60 Minutes interview conducted by Mike Wallace, Freeman ruffled some feathers in the African-American community when he proffered that “the concept of a month dedicated to black history was ridiculous.”
“You’re going to relegate my history to a month?” Freeman asked Wallace in their discussion of black history month. After noting there is “no white history month,” Freeman declared, “I don’t want a black history month. Black history is American history.”
Freeman went on to suggest that not only was the notion of a special month for black history hurting rather than helping efforts for racial equality, but also that the way to get rid of racism was to “stop talking about it.” Freeman stated to Wallace, “I am going to stop calling you a white man and ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman.”
On the surface, Freeman’s observations actually have some merit, although not necessarily based upon the conclusions that he has drawn. On the one hand, Freeman is right when he contends that black history is American history. It is impossible to survey American history by neither tracing the hairlines of the black experience in this country nor wrestling with the influence that black culture has had on America.
Consider that during a period of almost 350 years, the peculiar institution of slavery, Jim Crow and segregation were woven into the fabric of this country and, in many ways, has become the predicate for today’s America. It is then difficult to discuss any American enterprise or ideal without chronicling how blacks have indexed those actualities.
The very manner in which America insidiously and invidiously dealt with blacks during slavery and Jim Crow thereafter — both enchaining and denying them basic liberties and rights established under the Constitution of America; utilizing black slave labor to both establish a stable American economy that have sprung other industries, which continue to flourish today, and to build this country’s basic infrastructure; preventing blacks from learning how to read and write then using those inabilities against them when it came to voting privileges or the pursuance of an education; using tactics such as gerrymandering to avert black support of certain political factions; discriminating when it came to housing by using such practices as redlining and restrictive covenants; denying blacks entrance into certain venues and institutions as well as not allowing them to use facilities that were reserved for ‘whites only’; prohibiting blacks from the use of the equal protection clause while permitting laws that legally justified the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine; and lynching, hosing down and threatening black freedom fighters, amongst many other nefarious treatments — accounts for most of the history surveyed in this country.
Article comments
1 - JustOneMan
What about Italian, Polish, German, Irish, Indian, Chinese, etc, etc, etc....
JOM
2 - zingzing
did you read the article, jom, or just the title?
3 - Doug Hunter
"it would let white America off the hook"
Tell you what. You let me off the hook for slavery and I'll let you off the hook for gang violence, then as Freeman suggested we'll be back to treating each other as individuals. (which is the only workable long term solution)
4 - Baronius
This article fails to provide evidence that black history is underrepresented outside February. Even if it did, it never addresses the point of Freeman's comments: that Black History Month is intellectual segregation.
5 - ETS
Baronius -
How about you provide evidence that black history IS adequately represented outside of February? Or even DURING February, for that matter?
"Intellectual segregation" is an overly academic term that means absolutely nothing. All fields of study are segregated to some extent. They have to be to be sufficiently studied/recognized.
The bottom line is that histories of underrepresented groups wouldn't have to be individually celebrated if our country embraced a more wholistic concept of history. It's an old and simple solution for an even older and more simple issue.
6 - ETS
Doug Hunter -
You have us on the hook for gang violence? LOL. Are you keeping whites on that hook too, considering their gang and mob-like mentalities are evident throughout world history.