I was sent the following video:

It appears to be from Morgan Freeman’s appearance on “60 Minutes” in late 2005. Here’s a transcript should the video disappear:

Mike Wallace: Black History Month you find…

Morgan Freeman: …ridiculous.

Mike Wallace: Why?

Morgan Freeman: You’re going to relegate my history to a month?

Mike Wallace: Oh come on…

Morgan Freeman: Well, what do you do with yours? Which month is White History Month?

Mike Wallace: (flustered, stammers)

Morgan Freeman: Well… well… come on… tell me.

Mike Wallace: I’m Jewish.

Morgan Freeman: OK! Which month is Jewish History Month?

Mike Wallace: There isn’t one.

Morgan Freeman: Oh! Oh. Why not? Do you want one?

Mike Wallace: No. No.

Morgan Freeman: No, I… I don’t either. I don’t want a Black History Month. Black History is American History.

Mike Wallace: How are we going to get rid of racism?

Morgan Freeman: Stop talking about it. I’m going to stop calling you “a white man”, and I’m going to ask you to stop calling me “a black man.” I know you as Mike Wallace, you know me as Morgan Freeman.

And when I went looking for the date of the video, I found the accompanying article from CBS. The video clipped off at the end, but according to the CBS article the quote continues: “I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman. You wouldn’t say, ‘Well, I know this white guy named Mike Wallace.’ You know what I’m sayin’?”

 

I’ve long felt this is the answer. If you want to stop people caring about race then you need to stop caring about race. Period.

So long as we continue to divide, then well, we’ll be divided. If I’m forced to check a box on a form that says I’m Asian or White or whatever I it is that I am (mutt?), that’s dividing me. If we must hire or promote a certain number of people from some particular group because of some arbitrary quality about that group, then we have to care and divide and delineate and discriminate along that arbitrary quality; that implies that others from other groups may lose out because they don’t have that arbitrary quality when in fact they may possess more of the relevant quality. Is that right? How does such division unify? Maybe it’s that “new math”….

Does this mean we should flat out ignore race? No. We are what we are. My skin is darker than my wife’s skin, and our children have various shades in between. My eyes have more slant, my wife’s more oval. My wife is what she is, I am what I am. Morgan Freeman is what he is. Mike Wallace is what he is. We should not ignore race because it does comprise part of what we are, and it’s impossible to deny what we are. But we need to stop caring about it so much. 

 

On a related note, in watching that video YouTube gave a related suggestion of this video: