Social media erupted at his comments.
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Unless there was surveillance footage of the actual construction, or a supervisor with a cellphone video of the workers on the job, we have no idea exactly how they were treated. The part, in particular, where Obama said she woke up every night in a White House that was built by slaves, was like a fastball under the chin.
O’Reilly, a Fox News anchor and friend of Donald Trump, trivialized America’s original sin while fact-checking First Lady Michelle Obama, who mentioned White House slave labor in an electrifying Democratic National Convention speech on Monday.
While free black people and Scottish and Irish immigrants also helped build the White House, we can’t minimize the contributions slaves had in its construction and in shaping the nation. American slavery expert Jesse J. Holland writes that some of the labor involved in constructing the White House was “backbreaking” and told the Washington Post slaves who worked there lived in barns.
In 1800, President John Adams took up residence in what was then called the Executive Mansion.
USA Today did the same thing …”Bill O’Reilly defended the working conditions slaves faced while building the White House …” “But reporting the story behind Mrs. Obama’s very valid points does not diminish the horror of enslavement, as these dishonest critics allege”.
Feeding and lodging slaves doesn’t change the fact that the era of slavery was one in which black people were literally stripped of their humanity and forced to, as Michelle Obama pointed out, feel “the lash of bondage” and “the shame of servitude”. “Thanks for sharing, Bill”, tweeted author Stephen King.
There seems to be no limit to how far Bill O’Reilly will go to put a positive spin on slavery.
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“O’Reilly, everything you said about how the White House was built is true – according to the White House Historical Association”.
