Morgan Freeman has spoken out against Black History Month and the term “African-American” in a rare interview.
The actor, 85, who can currently be seen in Zach Braff’s film A Good Person, discussed race in the interview.
He told The Sunday Times’s Culture magazine: “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?
“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’.”
He continued: “What does it really mean? Most Black people in this part of the world are mongrels. And you say Africa as if it’s a country when it’s a continent, like Europe.”
Black History Month, an annual celebration that takes place in October in the UK and in February in the US, is a way of remembering important people and events in the history of the African diaspora.
Freeman’s point about the term “African-American” is that people would not say “Euro-American” – they would specify a country, for example, “Italian-American”.
In A Good Person, Florence Pugh plays a woman whose world falls apart when she is involved in a fatal car crash that kills her future sister-in-law.
Through her despair, she forms an unlikely friendship with her would-be father-in-law, portrayed by Freeman.
A Good Person will be available on Sky Cinema and NOW from 28 April.
