WhiteSplainin’ It To Michelle Obama
Even Donald Trump had the good sense to leave Michelle Obama the hell alone. He snarked not one single time about her speech at the convention.
Even. Donald. Trump.
Let that float around in your head when I tell you that Bill O’Reilly couldn’t help himself. Referring to Michelle Obama’s thoughts about slaves being used to build the White House….
Slaves that worked there were well-fed and had decent lodgings provided by the government, which stopped hiring slave labor in 1802. However, the feds did not forbid subcontractors from using slave labor. So, Michelle Obama is essentially correct in citing slaves as builders of the White House, but there were others working as well.
Things like “decent housing” and “hiring” slave labor show what a total and complete clueless sumbitch O’Reilly truly is.
Does he understand what slavery was? Would he exchange his freedom for a meal and a roof over his head? Yeah, well, I guess he already has.
Well if the dunderheads who loved what he said about the sla…er “Guest Workers” … I would love to see the commentary if they were told, nicely, that the first several presidents who inhabited the White House were obliged to provide their own house staff. Those who had slaves, just brought them along for the ride. It was cheaper.
1Just watched a documentary on the White House; it did mention the “staff” requirements being filled by the original occupants of the Presidential Mansion, but didn’t mention slavery per se. It did, however, highlight the fact that staff at the White House was segregated until the 1950s. I guess some old customs are just too hard to discard.
I’m so glad we’re making progress, but after 156 years it would be nice if we didn’t have to have so much left to do.
Remember folks: “E Pluribus Unum” isn’t just about the money. We’re all in this together.
2KJ is learning all about the “parental control” features of the electric box remote thingy. Station block which is what we use to keep Bildo off the machine is what keeps Daddy from throwing the machine out a window. Mute is good, too. “Out of the mouths of babes.” KJ – Daddy, we need new speakers? Uh no son, just giving my ears a rest.
3There’s a series of videos called “Ask a Slave” on youtube, in which a delightful actress who portrayed a slave at Mount Vernon talks about her life and answers questions in character as Lizzie Mae
This jackwagon is as ignorant as one of the fools in episode 3, who says that “slavery wasn’t all *that* bad.” Lizzie Mae, who has been polite to the clueless so far, replies, “Oh no, that [bleep] did not come up in here talking that [bleep] and [bleep] [test pattern] What was it you were saying?” (Mama might want to skip that moment if she can read lips.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n33iPnDRqPU
4And by the way, “hiring” slaves meant paying their masters for their labor, not paying the slaves.
5Rhea, I love “Lizzie Mae.”
And, your comment @5 – that’s what Donnie means, when he claims to be a job ‘creator.’
6Could that fool O’Reilly be anymore offensive? Well-fed? They were bought and sold like furniture or cattle. Is he really trying to justify the selling of human beings now? Fox needs to be destroyed for all the evil that they do.
7Such Billo nonsense.
8“…well-fed and had decent lodgings…”
Dear God. That’s the sort of neo-confederate pimping I started hearing when I was a kid, sixty years ago. O’Reilly ought to lose his job for spewing that kind of filth in this day and time—particularly in relation to a class act like Michelle Obama. I’m sure he has lifetime tenure at Fox “News,” unfortunately.
9Charlie Pierce at Esquire wrote the best description of Mrs. Obama’s speech and it’s effect on the audience”…if there had been any kind of “chaotic cascade of jeering” aimed at Michelle Obama from the floor, you would not be able to identify the hecklers with dental records.”
One of the best quotes ever about the speech.
10Yes, the same people who believe $7.00 an hour is a good living wage, would certainly be the ones to define “well-fed” and “decent housing.”
They look at slavery as the ultimate minimum wage.
11Look also, Billo thinks Giving the Boss a BJ, to hold your job is no big deal. After all he’s been doing it to hold his job for years. His buddy, Haunn always gets the other side. But they are not Gay, hell no, they only do it for the Money.
12Sorry Mama some things just need to be said.
Suggest Billo look up the phrase “whistle walk”
13Maybe years ago, Bostonins were right posting signs “Irish need not apply”
14Uhh, yeah, that would have been the “Slavery Fair Housing Act” of 1802. Zat right Billy Bob?
15“Weekly food rations — usually corn meal, lard, some meat, molasses, peas, greens, and flour — were distributed every Saturday. Vegetable patches or gardens, if permitted by the owner, supplied fresh produce to add to the rations. Morning meals were prepared and consumed at daybreak in the slaves’ cabins. The day’s other meals were usually prepared in a central cookhouse by an elderly man or woman no longer capable of strenuous labor in the field. Recalled a former enslaved man: “The peas, the beans, the turnips, the potatoes, all seasoned up with meats and sometimes a ham bone, was cooked in a big iron kettle and when meal time come they all gathered around the pot for a-plenty of helpings!” This took place at noon, or whenever the field slaves were given a break from work. At the day’s end, some semblance of family dinner would be prepared by a wife or mother in individual cabins. The diets, high in fat and starch, were not nutritionally sound and could lead to ailments, including scurvy and rickets. Enslaved people in all regions and time periods often did not have enough to eat; some resorted to stealing food from the master. House slaves could slip food from leftovers in the kitchen, but had to be very careful not to get caught, for harsh punishments awaited such an offense.”
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/experience/living/history2.html
16Commenters elsewhere are just as bad if not worse than O’Reilly. He has a lot of soul mates.
17OK Mr. O’Reilly. Here’s the deal:
We (ALL of our families that occupied the US prior to 1863) allowed slavery in the USA. Until we didn’t. Slave labour was used extensively to create, I guess, pretty much everything up until that time. To somehow paint that part of our history as not there, or at least not that bad, is FALSE. Yes, even those of us having families up North that didn’t have slaves, we have a stake in benefiting from the use of slave labour. Until we didn’t. Elsewise there wouldn’t have been a need for abolitionists, “Well regulated militias”, (some) sailing vessel build and design, or Boston Rum. It is a part of our heritage that a hell of a lot of people fought and died over.
So why try to minimize the past? Own the past to make a better future.
18All I have to say is that . . . Gee it’s nice to be around intelligent, funny and well read people. I’m getting edumicated mightily here today.
That’s why I keep coming back.
19“…well-fed…” and “…decent lodgings…”
Citations, BillO. Citations. No, just because your face is on teevee you don’t get to spout out stuff without citing competent authority. Do your research. Try again.
Good lord, these people just tick me off! Really bad!!
20https://www.whitehousehistory.org/questions/did-slaves-build-the-white-house
“The D.C. commissioners, charged by Congress with building the new city under the direction of the president, initially planned to import workers from Europe to meet their labor needs. However, response to recruitment was dismal and soon they turned to African American—enslaved and free—to provide the bulk of labor that built the White House, the United States Capitol, and other early government buildings
21I don’t know how to put links on here, but Google”An open letter to Bill O’Reilly from one of the slaves who built the White House” By Michael Harriot. Enjoy.
22ROFLMAO: The boob reflexively injects “subcontractors” into the argument to cover non-feeding and non-housing. I wonder why?
23Here ya go P.P., http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2016/07/an-open-letter-to-bill-oreilly-from-one-of-the-slaves-who-built-the-white-house/
24Thanks for the link. And don’t miss the “insightful” comment at the bottom. Sheesh.
25“Lizzie Mae” is great, love her on youtube. wish she’d been there when I was a kid, and went to visit Mt. Vernon.
it must be tough getting those big feet out of his mouth.
26“No Irish Need Apply,” was the first sign my grandparents saw when they arrived in Boston. They were strong, proud, democrats and strong supporters of the “New Deal”, as I still am.
27We are embarrassed by O’Reilly and other faux news creeps that have Irish names. Hell, we are embarrassed to call all of them U.S. Citizens.
Thanks for the link Rhea. Lizzie Mae is outstanding and those questioners are uneducated idiots!
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