Morgan Freeman: What’s With This Half-White President of Ours?
At a 2009 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Wanda Sykes said to Barack Obama:
The first black president! I’m proud to be able to say that. That’s unless you screw up. And then it’s going to be, “What’s up with the half-white guy?”
Oscar winning actor Morgan Freeman has declared that the U.S. is still waiting for its first black president as Barack Obama does not qualify because he is of mixed-heritage.
Making the controversial comments on NPR, Freeman said that even though President Obama identifies himself as African-American, the fact remains that his mother was a white woman from the Great Plains.
“First thing that pops into my head regarding our president is that all of the people who are setting up this barrier…they just conveniently forget that Barack had a mama, and she was white – very white American, Kansas, middle of America.”
The story says Obama checked off “black” on the 2010 Census. I guess he’s one of the ones who conveniently forgot he’s just a half-white guy.
P.S. Romney is headed to the NAACP today to do the “we don’t do enough for black people” thing that GOP candidates feel like they have to do.
Wouldn’t it be great if someone actually took conservative principles to them and explained how those benefit everybody — black, white, or half-white?
Wow. So we’re back to the “one drop of blood” standard?
Chuck Bartowski (3bccbd) — 7/11/2012 @ 7:49 amwhy do we subsidize National Soros Radio again?
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 7/11/2012 @ 7:50 amHe really is a Sith Lord;
http://washingtonexaminer.com/james-earl-jones-cant-get-enough-msnbc-calls-tea-party-racist/article/2501767
narciso (ee31f1) — 7/11/2012 @ 7:53 am_____________________________________________
as Barack Obama does not qualify because he is of mixed-heritage.
Besides, Bill Clinton was touted by some activists (of the left, and in some instances also black too) as being America’s first black president. Which says a lot about what really fuels people like those similar to Freeman: Adhering to the traits of liberalism, sloppy and feel-good or otherwise, is all that they ultimately care about in a president or any other politician.
Mark (3cc14a) — 7/11/2012 @ 8:38 am____________________________________________
explained how those benefit everybody
But how many people, of all backgrounds and stripes, even are aware of or care about surveys that indicate over 90 percent of the black community is of the left, or on election day favors liberal politicians? That observation is rarely, if ever, made, much less how such monolithic leftism can be applied against the backdrop of the socio-economic health (or lack of such) of a good portion of black America.
Or the question of whether such overwhelming, one-sided liberalism has made the African-American populace truly more humane, more generous, more compassionate, more decent, more sophisticated, and certainly more stable, sensible and reliable than it otherwise would be.
Mark (3cc14a) — 7/11/2012 @ 8:47 amWell, I said when Obama was elected that I’ll believe that our nation had finally put our foundational sin of slavery behind us when a decedent of slaves had been elected president.
I’m still waiting. Nice to know that MF agrees with me.
Pious Agnostic (7c3d5b) — 7/11/2012 @ 8:55 amIt should be humiliating to Mr Freeman to be exposed caring so much about someone’s heritage. It doesn’t matter.
Also, most African Americans have a great deal of European genetic heritage. This shouldn’t matter.
What matters is the individual. It’s never time to forget the mistakes made, but it is time to stop attempting to relive them, re-litigate them, and rekindle them.
I agree with Patterico that Romney can make a great case that limited government and limited dependency on government programs is in everyone’s best interest. It is not really doing anyone a favor to put them on food stamps and subsidized health care because these programs are still costly and that cost actually does net damage, including to opportunities at every level. Freeing our economy to offer jobs does much more than fund health care and food (though it does this better than the government can).
Unfortunately, our culture has shifted and it is risky to attempt to educate them. I hope Romney takes the risk.
Dustin (73fead) — 7/11/2012 @ 9:08 amHow classy WOULD it have been IF Mr. Morgan Freeman had said “I judge Barack Obama based on the content of his character,” and left it at that?
But NO, the “first thing” that pops into his head . . .
Icy (642c3c) — 7/11/2012 @ 9:20 amWouldn’t it be great if someone actually took conservative principles to them and explained how those benefit everybody — black, white, or half-white
It sounds like that’s what he did.
Christopher Fotos (a7eb96) — 7/11/2012 @ 9:37 amA better dig at Obama from Freeman’s perspective would be that he grew up “white.” He did not live among, or experience the culture of, African-Americans until he was an adult. All he knows about being black in America he learned from Michelle and Rev Wright. Bill Clinton is more authentically black.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 7/11/2012 @ 10:29 amI guess this means that Freeman will be thrilled when Condi Rice runs for Veep. She’s as black as Morgan and grew up in Big Jim Folsom’s Alabama, where, when she was 4, a black man was sentenced to death for the robbery of $1.95. Unlike Obama, she’s lived with segregation, Klan violence, George Wallace and is a descendant of slaves. But I’m sure Morgan will find her wanting just the same.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 7/11/2012 @ 10:44 amDidn’t Freeman once utterly dismiss this racial focus? I distinctly remember being impressed with him for his clarity. But apparently he’s changed his mind or I’m remembering the wrong person.
Dustin (73fead) — 7/11/2012 @ 10:48 amHere’s the interview.
What happened?
Dustin (73fead) — 7/11/2012 @ 10:50 amDustin–
He may honestly believe that opposition to Obama is primarily about race and this has caused him to circle the wagons.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 7/11/2012 @ 10:58 amI’ve always found it fascinating that it’s always hard to find out the Genesis of these surveys, that say black Americans are so liberal, yet at the same time are so socially conservative. One thing that I have always wondered about, is where do they take these surveys. I live in my own home, out in the suburbs. I’m a taxpayer. o my views on the government dime might differ from my inner city brothers. Do they ever come out to survey me – or do they simply take an inner city survey and extrapolate it to all blacks?
Mike Giles (d87ccb) — 7/11/2012 @ 11:01 amHow much whiter are white Kansans than white Mainers?
All forays into racial classification end up in farce.
Marshal (999f06) — 7/11/2012 @ 11:02 amThat is odd. I guess he’s trying to say the more conservative state is whiter? If Morgan sets things up that way, to where those who agree with his politics are more black and those who agree less are whiter, then he’s being a ridiculous racist. Is this the underlying issue with Obama? His cronyism passes as liberal to conservatives because of the spending and growth of government, but many liberals do not recognize it that way.
Dustin (73fead) — 7/11/2012 @ 11:06 amWhat really matters is what the Nobel Peace Prize Committee thinks someone’s race is.
LTMG (d011cc) — 7/11/2012 @ 11:08 amAs to Morgan Freeman on Obama’s “blackness” he’s on to something, he just has quite gotten it worked out in his mind yet. Obama is the child of a white mother and a Kenyan father. He was raised by his white mother and white grandparents, in Hawaii. A state not exactly over run with black folks. I would be willing to guess that for much of his youth people simply assumed he was a Pacific Islander. When he finally did come to the states, he dropped into the hothouse, white liberal world of academia. Obama sat in Rev Wrights pew so he could get some idea of acting like a American black man – something he had never really been – in front of audiences of American blacks. Morgan Freeman has simply picked up on that element of him being slightly “off”. As if he’s playing a role, never quite being himself. I’ve always thought that the best way to describe Obama is as a white, left wing, radical; who happens to have a “good tan”.
Mike Giles (d87ccb) — 7/11/2012 @ 11:17 amWhat, they want one of those guys with a bone through his nose?
Joe Mama (6dc5b3) — 7/11/2012 @ 12:19 pmReading/Listening to this asshole will make it tough to drop $15 at the movies for Batman.
john b (50eb58) — 7/11/2012 @ 12:22 pmAh crap. I forgot he was in the new batman.
Dustin (73fead) — 7/11/2012 @ 12:25 pmComment by Mike Giles — 7/11/2012 @ 11:17 am
I’ve always thought that the best way to describe Obama is as a white, left wing, radical; who happens to have a “good tan”.
Something more than that, although he wanted to avoid any hate.
He was immersed in a very bad political culture.
The one alluded to here:
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nypd-commissioner-raymond-kelly-rails-community-leaders-silence-a-week-77-people-shot-city-article-1.1111799
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 7/11/2012 @ 12:41 pmActually, I don’t think the GOP does do enough to talk to the black community. I’ve been reading Bob over at Black and Right and I think he’s got a fairly solid attitude about the issue. He recently wrote a post about what he thought Romney should say to the NAACP; it was pretty thought provoking.
Romney has an opportunity to talk to the black community for the simple reason that we DO have a black president, and things have not changed. If anything, situations have gotten worse. I think this is the perfect time to be approaching anyone who was previously thought to be inapproachable.
Book (ea7957) — 7/11/2012 @ 3:29 pmLucius Fox , wouldn’t go for such foolishness,
narciso (ee31f1) — 7/11/2012 @ 4:01 pmSo now we’ve got liberal Morgan Freeman referring to Obama as “half-white.”
As an earlier commenter noted, wouldn’t it be nice if Freeman had said something along the lines of how he judges Obama by the content of his character, rather than the color of his skin.
By the way, what are the chances that Morgan Freeman will refer to Elizabeth Warren as “31/32nds white.”
Elephant Stone (0ae97d) — 7/11/2012 @ 10:37 pmI would say the odds are 32:1 against
Icy (642c3c) — 7/11/2012 @ 11:57 pm26. Half-white, half-educated, legally Potus, of illegitimate parentage, total fraud, useless, plebian celebrity, Muslim-Marxist bagman, Choombaracka.
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 7/12/2012 @ 4:39 am