Bill O’Reilly Makes Tactless "Well-Fed Slaves" Comment

As seen on Monday [July 25] night, Michelle Obama made a very well spoken speech for the Democratic Convention. In the previously mentioned speech, she made the comment, “I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves,” which as history shows, is a correct and valid statement.

On Tuesday [July 26] night, Fox New’s Bill O’Reilly made the tactless comment in a 90-second segment at the tail end of his show where he spoke on Mrs. Obama’s comment saying that the White House slaves didn’t actually have it that hard and were “well fed and had decent lodgings provided by the government, which stopped hiring slave labor in 1802.”

The issue with this comment is not only that it attempts to justify slave labor, but it also attempts to somewhat rewrite what slavery truly was. By saying the government was “hiring slave labor” is an oxymoron. Slaves were paid nothing and received nothing for the work they did. By using the term “hiring,” it gives off the connotation that the slaves were subcontracted instead of commanded, which takes away from the harsh reality that slavery was.

His “well-fed”and “lodgings” claims are also relative. Many slave masters considered menial shacks “decent lodging” for slave families. Well fed could mean that they just went without starving. Even if these statements are true, however, it does nothing to justify slavery because the act of taking people from their country, forcing them to work and having them receive nothing, threatening punishments like whippings, cannot be justified. While O’Reilly may have made these claims to show the contrast between plantation slaves and the slaves that built and worked in the White House, it is still seen as demeaning and not well spoken.