Black History Month -- Under Fire?

Freeman Criticizes Black History Month - Yahoo! News: "Freeman notes there is no 'white history month,' and says the only way to get rid of racism is to 'stop talking about it.'

The actor says he believes the labels 'black' and 'white' are an obstacle to beating racism.

'I am going to stop calling you a white man and I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man,' Freeman says."

You know, on some level, I really do agree with him. I feel like he's right to the extent that if everyone has the same goals, that is to end bigotry and racism, then to stop obsessing about our differences (based on race) would be a major service to reaching that goal. The obsession with race and equality in this country can definitely cause me and others to bristle on occaison.

But, I disagree because there are still plenty of people who actively choose to judge people based on their race. It's not a function of them having been taught about race and making some rational decision. It's that certain groups of people are fixated on it, whether they admit it or not.

That said, the current open dialogue on race has brought us, as a nation, much closer to a satisfactory balance than an approach of pretending that the problems of race only exist because we choose to acknowledge them. I mean, if you look at how far we've come as a nation so far as race is concerned, even since the eighties, we're getting better.