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Morgan Freeman dismisses "white privilege"

Thank God! All that liberal white guilt was really weighing me down.
 
Well,you can let it all go now...for the voice of God Almighty Himself has let you know that white privilege is a myth that no longer needs to haunt you. Where you grow from this is solely up to you.
 
So Morgan Freeman, a man who lives a life of extreme privilege as a result of his job, expresses an opinion that is contrary to what most experience and you latch onto it as if it's gospel? Exceptions do not prove the rule. I see white privilege lived out all of the time, in my life, in the lives of my black friends (especially their sons, who regularly live with undeserved and demeaning suspicion and scrutiny), in the lives of my neighbors and in the different way my white kids and my black son are treated. Morgan Freeman is wrong.
 
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Morgan Freeman lives up to his last name...and I believe you are paranoid ala Chris Rocks description.

I lived/dated a black woman for three years - as beautiful a person as I have known and a real soul. The only incident we ever experienced - and we went everywhere - even rural redneck North Carolina--- the only incident we ever encountered was when I left her momentarily to get us both a beer at a party at Duke University -- three guys came over to her and accosted her for being with a white man. One man punched her in the back and another guy hit her in the stomach so hard she lay on the ground puking. I took her home in a veil of tears. The 3 men were black.

Talk about what your experience and I tell you of mine. They differ like thumbprints but don't try and tell me that Morgan Freeman doesn't know what it's like to be black in America because you have an adopted black child.
 
Did you watch that clip? At no point in time does he say "white privilege." He intimated that yes racism still exists, but don't use it as an excuse to not follow your dreams. That's a really positive message that you are totally distorting.

Three black guys beat up your black girlfriend at a party at Duke...stfu....you're either lying, or you are a pussy who let a bunch of guys beat up his girlfriend and did nothing. Which is it?
 
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I watched the whole clip. He said it clearly enough. I agreed with him on everything he said...including that succinct line on White Priviledge. Question really is, can you accept all that he said?
 
Lectro said:
I watched the whole clip. He said it clearly enough. I agreed with him on everything he said...including that succinct line on White Priviledge. Question really is, can you accept all that he said?
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At no point in the video does he say "white privilege."
 
RacerDeac said:
So Morgan Freeman, a man who lives a life of extreme privilege as a result of his job, expresses an opinion that is contrary to what most experience and you latch onto it as if it's gospel? Exceptions do not prove the rule. I see white privilege lived out all of the time, in my life, in the lives of my black friends (especially their sons, who regularly live with undeserved and demeaning suspicion and scrutiny), in the lives of my neighbors and in the different way my white kids and my black son are treated. Morgan Freeman is wrong.
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lololololol
 
RacerDeac said:
Exceptions do not prove the rule.
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Lectro said:
I lived/dated a black woman for three years - as beautiful a person as I have known and a real soul. The only incident we ever experienced - and we went everywhere - even rural redneck North Carolina--- the only incident we ever encountered was when I left her momentarily to get us both a beer at a party at Duke University -- three guys came over to her and accosted her for being with a white man. One man punched her in the back and another guy hit her in the stomach so hard she lay on the ground puking. I took her home in a veil of tears. The 3 men were black.
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Look, we white people always have our 1-2 stories that we think "prove" that institutional racism and white privilege don't exist. We love our exceptions. They make us feel good about ourselves, our country, etc. Been there, done that, and had my worldview shattered by good friends who cared enough about me to point out just how blind my own white privilege had made me to it's very existence. Morgan Freeman is definitely a black American, but he has lived within his own privileged world that has kept him immune to most of the day to day struggles with racism that normal black Americans deal with. His kids don't get followed around stores at the mall to make sure they aren't stealing. He doesn't get pulled over by cops and treated like a criminal while driving perfectly legally. He doesn't get denied jobs he's overqualified for because he's black...hell, he gets acting roles precisely because he's black. He's likely never worked his ass off to start a business, only to have customers stop calling when they find out he's not white. Those aren't the exceptions...those are stories you can hear over and over and over if you take the time to listen. Morgan is isolated. He's the exception. His opinion on the issue has more weight than mine, sure, but his opinion puts him in a tiny minority of his own minority.

You do realize that the fact he even has the chance to be on CNN and express his opinion means that he has privilege that only a very, very few have, right? How about we grab a few middle class people of color off the street and put them on CNN. Those the stories I want to hear. Those are the stories that we need to be listening to.
 
The Cynic is always a great role to play ^-I have played it and superbly and on many occasion. Yet it has no strings to attach and hold it to a shifting and "nuanced" reality. Sadly,it is ultimately an expression of "helplessness" and for this it has no foundation to build upon either. It is a curious mixture of the comedic genius of Stephen Colbert
and John Stewart whose daily recitations repeat the messengers lament: "don't shoot me,but this is really the news...really!"
Both men have been disgusted in life and the way we record our past,present and still to come (epistimelogical aim of history" to make Townie happy). They are disgusted as many of us are and on different sides and angles -- disgusted with truth "told and sold"...like Doonesbury or Tom Tomorrow...they make fun of events because to engage them where they are framed is a suckers punch.
Yet the cost for both men is that they are neither prescient nor wise. Wit becomes nuance and wisdom becomes an instance of being Clever. The ugliest man in Greece never tired of pointing out the instances of Cynicism walking down the runway dressed as Wisdom.
 
What's funny about Lectro's story is that there's research that shows white men in interracial relationships ignore racism they face while they're partners readily acknowledge it.

It's good to see Racer beat down Lectro even if it isn't in real life.
 
Racer...that last post was not meant for you. I want to make that clear. It took me awhile to post and I did not "see you".

I accept what you say. I grew up in the projects of Atlanta and my parents were part of a generation attempting to climb an idealistic American Dream. My pop started as a low level federal employee (even though he had a Guilford education backed by a dual masters in administration and psych from Michigan) After many stops in the Deep South - one town where the sherrif had poker/drinking and target practice next door in Clarksdale. The house on Cape Cod where the "official" next door referred to Jews as "kikes"... We seemed to run some East Coast gambit of racial differentiation and bias. My old man was the yellow-dog Democrat with an office of 500 people to administer welfare checks (Regional Director Health,Education and Welfare - became HHS,of course.) Pops would never talk about individuals but he would candidly admit that if a person came along who was "so talented"...well,he said he'd "help them into the private sector" - a young black woman named Finesse was just such a person and she became a regular dinner guest and quite the partner in a Durham Law Firm. Although I liked all of his co-workers ---having come to know them as a young kid visiting 'his dad's' office and seeing the cocktail parties - he retained a litany of white guys who were smart yet did not have the temperament nor grace to run an office,much less an organization.

Racism is real... and your experience does teach me. All I am saying is that "hatred" , "blind hatred", keeps us hermetically sealed in a place we might otherwise turn our vast resources for comedy to our benefit. I have met all manner men. I have heard all kinds of hateful speech. It has been a rare occasion when I really met a man who matched his bluster. Most of us are a disparate collection of ideas and idealogies that have preached. I can count one hand - less actually- the number of people I have known who were inherently Evil. I have heard all sorts of bluster and what would be considered "hateful speech" by a number of men who have conversely acted as 'moral agents 'when life was on the line...it does not excuse their lapses into stupidity which I believe are driven by a curious mix of ignorance and frustration. Yet it a Still does not make them evil. Evil is not a gene...and in time I believe it can be unlearned --- I may be a Utopian but I God- Honest believe that Lions can lay with Lambs.
 
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Why do I care what Morgan Freeman has to say about white privilege?
 
PhDeac said:
What's funny about Lectro's story is that there's research that shows white men in interracial relationships ignore racism they face while they're partners readily acknowledge it.

It's good to see Racer beat down Lectro even if it isn't in real life.
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I have no doubt that Racer could "take care of me in real life" or some such.

Your stats may very well be correct...but it was always "L" who had to calm me down... "baby,nobody is even looking at us...take it easy" (kind of like you lads are always telling me to take my meds :) No, she was always understanding and to be brutally honest she did tell me "you have no idea...you can go out and 'act the fool' but if "we" go out and step outta line then the judgement comes down and it's hard and unforgiving. White people can act out in public where blacks are scorned".

That would end up as the toughest blow...she said "you will never understand" and truly, I am sure that I can never walk in her or another persons shoes - no matter how hard I tried.

So Ph, you are correct. Morgan Freeman's point of view is not 'absolute' in the slightest...but do I admire him and the stance he has adopted..."You better bet you better you bet!"

---that was for u Wake n Bake...a little Townsend in the Moon-light,so to speak. Keith was a walking piece of "free Expression" even if all he could do was "drum/draw" expressions of chains and pschological torment. "No one knows what it's like" described Roger, Pete and himself.
As an artist of "free-as-one-can be in modernity, Moon was an expression of anarchic individuality... he performed as many cortotions as Francis Bacon displayed in the medium of paint. Like Salvador Dali...a pure expression of "I Am" and a precursor of Mick Jagger's surrealist and less believable character who wants "you" off "His" cloud.
 
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TownieDeac said:
Why do I care what Morgan Freeman has to say about white privilege?
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It seems to me that he ascended the insurmountable hill of success, despite being born as a minority in the American South. Let's take a moment to review the life of Morgan Freeman and see what his case study can tell us.

Mr. Freeman was born on June 1, 1937 to Mayme Edna (a teacher) and Morgan P. Freeman (a barber). Morgan (the younger) finished his public high school and enlisted in the military service of the United States. After completing his enlistment, he pursued his professional interests by taking acting classes at the Pasadena playhouse while working a day job, and pursued the opportunities that were presented to him which eventually propelled him into a career with earnings that will surpass the gross lifetime totals of the aggregate of most of this board. Let's take a moment and see what factors might have led him---a wildly successful man from the American South born without privilege--- to form the opinion that fixating on race is a counterproductive "excuse not to get things done" and to refuse to live his life as somebody's victim:

Two parent home? Check.
Finished public high school? Check.
Sought gainful employment? Check.
Worked at his trade diligently? Check.

Family, education, public service and work...., why if I didn't know better, I'd say that that sounds like the advice you guys give your children. Weird.

Not everybody is going to be paid millions to give the play-by-play analysis of a penguin migration, but nobody who took themselves out of the gain with (subsidized) irresponsible choices is going to have those opportunities.

eta: And before one of you guys blows out an o-ring with another "OMG JHMD DENIES RACISM EXISTS!!!111" screed, listen to what this man is saying. He's not saying that racism doesn't exist, he's saying wallowing in the problem isn't a solution. He's saying that every time you excuse self-destructive behavior on race, you're moving away from solutions and back towards perpetuating its effects. You don't have to listen to him, but it seems like the list of people you guys have to disregard for wandering off the script is growing.
 
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Are you two in the same trailer cooking meth?
 
What is the argument jhmd?
 
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