But truth is:
Freeman: “Stop talking about it. I'm going to stop calling you a white man, and I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman. You want to say, `Well, I know this white guy named Mike Wallace.' You know what I'm saying?”
I understand Freeman's point. But it's a bad approach. There's nothing wrong with referring to somebody as a white guy, black guy, Asian, Indian or Mexican.*
The problem is not the use of labels. People label others to make them easier to reference. For example, suppose I'm trying to direct your attention to a black guy in a wheelchair. I'm going to say, "Check out the guy in the wheelchair," not "Check out that black guy."
The chair is more distinctive than the dude's skin color. It's just easier to reference. If he were standing among a group of whites, I'd reference his skin color. Unless his hair's on fire, in which case I'd reference that.
The problem is that people are too emotional. They compensate for feelings of inadequacy by looking for reasons to feel offended, and then expressing outrage over those trumped-up reasons.
Here's an example:
A lot of youngish women (late 20s to late 30s) become offended when you call them ma'am. There's nothing wrong with the reference (although it's becoming outdated). The issue is that many women are emotional and look for reasons to take offense.
It's the same with issues related to race.
Emotional people are unlikely to be deep thinkers. It's no surprise that when pressed, most are unable to properly define "racism."
* Assuming you use the labels Mexican, Hispanic and Latino accurately.