Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman said that U.S. President Barack Obama is not the country’s first black president in an interview with NPR on Thursday.
"There was no argument about who he is or what he is. America's first black president hasn't arisen yet. He's not America's first black president — he's America's first mixed-race president,” Freeman said in an interview with Michel Martin.
Freeman was trying to make a point that some people oppose Obama because of his race, when in fact, the actor argued, Obama is "mixed race" and not African-American.
“First thing that always pops into my head regarding our president,” he said “is that all of the people who are setting up this [racial] barrier for him ... they just conveniently forget that Barack had a mama, and she was white -- very white American, Kansas, middle of America.”
In his defense, Freeman did not mean this in a bashing way towards President Obama. He was instead trying to point out that the Republican Party has a tendency to treat Obama unfairly because of the color of his skin.
"He is being purposely, purposely thwarted by the Republican Party, who started out at the beginning of his tenure by saying, 'We are going to do whatever is necessary to make sure that he's only going to serve one term,' " he said. "That means they will not cooperate with him on anything. So to say he's ineffective is a misappropriation of the facts."
