Silliest remark by a celebrated black movie maker

Yahoo reports Steve McQueen (Twelve Years A Slave) saying he was beaten with a belt as a child.

"Why?" he asked. "Because it goes back to slavery," he answered, oblivious to the realities of all races in America as recently as his childhood and mine.

Though nowadays things seem otherwise, I think.

Children are far less likely even to be slapped, and both society and the law seem less accepting of parents using violence, however modest, to control their children.