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By IBTimes Staff Reporter | September 25, 2011 9:06 AM EDT
GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain hit back at Morgan Freeman for calling the Tea Party racist, saying the Oscar-winning actor's remarks were "short-sighted."
"Most of the people that are criticizing the Tea Partiers about having a racist element, they have never been to a Tea Party," Cain told Fox News.
Freeman, who sat down with CNN host Piers Morgan in an interview that aired Friday night, said since Americans voted the first black president into the White House in 2008, racism has only gotten worse, not better.
The "Invictus" star puts the burden of this on the Tea Party political movement, saying Obama has become a target for the Tea Party's "racist" aggression, Reuters reported.
"Their stated policy, publicly stated, is to do whatever it takes to see to it that Obama only serves one term," Freeman said. "What's, what does that, what underlines that? 'Screw the country. We're going to do whatever we can to get this black man out of here.'
"Freeman, who endorsed Obama during his presidential run, but declined to campaign with him, said "it's a racist thing," and the Tea Party's rise is proof that hate still lingers in America.
"Well, it just shows the weak, dark, underside of America," he said. "We're supposed to be better than that. We really are. That's, that's why all those people were in tears when Obama was elected president. 'Ah, look at what we are. Look at how, this is America.' You know? And then it just sort of started turning because these people surfaced like stirring up muddy water.
