How to be part of the problem
Calvin Zito
Community Manager and Evangelist | Morpheus team @ Hewlett Packard Enterprise
The other day I saw a lot of news articles on my Twitter feed titled "Bill O'Reilly: Slaves Who Built the White House Were 'Well-Fed and Had Decent Lodging". Having only seen the title, I thought "wow, that really seems unbelievable that he would say that". And this headline scrolled across my timeline for hours.
The headline alone doesn't look good but context is everything (or should be).
I don't know Bill O'Reilly though I've read each of his historic "Killing" books (Killing Lincoln, Killing Jesus, Killing Patton, etc) and find them well researched. I don't know if he's a racist or not - but having at least seen his public persona on his TV show and read his books, I haven't ever heard anything to indicate he is.
Today, I saw more people tweeting the headline "Slaves who built the White House were well-fed..." and I saw one person take it even further with the tweet I have below.
I decided to find out exactly what Bill O'Reilly said and I was pretty certain that he wouldn't have said "why are they complaining; they got a free ride".
You can see the one and half minute video on the Fox News website. Essentially, O'Reilly was confirming what Michelle Obama had said at the Democratic National Convention on Monday night that the White House was built by slaves.
Here's my problem with this tactic. I can find nothing in what O'Reilly said being racist. He was not providing commentary or even his opinion but talking about research he had on how the White House was built. The facts he discussed were (and these are almost verbatim what he said):
- George Washington picked the site in 1791 and was present when the cornerstone was laid in 1792. He ran the government from Philadelphia while the White House was being built.
- Slaves did participate in the construction of the White House. Records show payments made to slave masters between 1795-1801. Free blacks, whites, and others also worked on the White House.
- John Adams took up residence in 1800 when it was called the "Executive Residence". The work continued on the White House while Adam's lived there.
- Slaves that worked there were well fed and had decent lodging provided by the government which stopped hiring slave labor in 1802. Contractors that used slave labor were allowed to continue.
He concluded the segment saying that Michelle Obama was right, slaves did help build the White House.
Do we have race issues that need to be addressed in the U.S.? Absolutely.
Don't confuse my questioning these tactics with some rose-colored glasses view of the race issues we face. Some were equating O'Reilly with the KKK. Tactics like this are crossing a line and don't help the conversation. Attributing racist comments where they don't exists or going even further to fabricating racist comments and attributing them to someone is dishonest and not helpful in the conversation. What we need is real dialog and the pundits who take to Twitter with hate on all sides are robbing us of the ability to join and address this issue.
The lack of real dialog about racism in America has resulted in anger (somewhat justified) but these dishonest tactics are not. They set up barriers to real conversation and real solutions. This new racial McCarthyism (making accusations without proper evidence) really isn't helpful and the sooner folks understand this, the sooner progress can be made.
In her DNC speech, Mrs. Obama was trying to make the point that the strengths of the U.S. sometimes spring in part from an ugly path. Bill O'Reilly was agreeing with the FLOTUS. We have a choice to continue to build on those strengths or take us down an ugly path.
What do you say? How do we move beyond the finger-pointing nasty dialog that seems to be popular on social media and actually work on the real issue?
Uplifting others is my super power!
8 年I'm going to disagree with you here. Most people took unbridgeable with your third point. Clearly O'Reilly was sending a mixed message. Obama was making a point about what's good in America. The spirit of her message was how far we've come as a country. She's the First Lady of a country that at one point in time used slaves to build the very house she lives in. It's powerful and poignant. We have come far. But there is still much work to do. The issue with O'Reilly is simple: why qualify what Obama said at all? It's clear the White House was built by slaves. Obama never said "only" slaves so why go there? And what does slaves being well fed have anything to do with anything? They're still slaves. Why mention that point at all.?? The whole logic is just ridiculous. Whether or not O'Reilly is racist is irrelevant to the discussion. Michelle Obama's entire speech was about positivity and progress. It was neither political nor partisan. Dissecting her point can only cater to negativity--which is exactly what happened. To your point labeling every pro-right Fox driven comment as racist isn't a helpful reaction to the discussion BUT creating this discussion at all is actually the negative action that sparked it.
Hey Calvin. You raise some good points and I can only speak to my own view of Bill O'Reilly's TV comments. While I agree with his corroboration of the the First Lady's statement in her DNC speech there is one point that I found particularly objectionable. His use of the word 'hire' relating to slave labour. The Oxford English dictionary defines the word hire as 'Employ (someone) for wages' - https://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/hire This was quite obviously not the case for slave during the time pre-abolition days in the USA. Slaves, by definition are not hired, they are forced to labour with no reward or choice in the matter. It may seem like a minor semantic point, but his choice of words, demeans the horror of the millions who were kept in bondage with no rights or protection under the law. I wholeheartedly agree with your comment about how racism limits power and we should all unite to empower all members of our society. But when a highly popular TV personality such as Mr O'Reilly makes a careless choice of words to belittle or reduce the scale of institutionally sanctioned slavery, in my opinion it dishonours those who suffered under it's oppression.
vCISO, vCTO, IT Security Architect, incident commander, business consultant
8 年Twitter seems to be more trouble than its worth since it's an hourly occurrence that things are taken out of context and twisted due to the character limitation and the behavior it incentivizes.
Community Manager and Evangelist | Morpheus team @ Hewlett Packard Enterprise
8 年Thanks Angelo Cavaliere. I've had these thoughts swirling around for some time especially appropriateness of posting on LinkedIn. I'm still not sure it's the right place to say this. Racism is about limiting power - especially economic and I want to see change. Real change. And as long as this kind of dialogue from all sides continues, I fear change is unlikely.
RETIRED
8 年Calvin, I completely agree with the sentiment that you expressed here. With that said, I feel compelled to say that I am generally not comfortable with using LinkedIn as a forum for discussing matters involving race, religion or politics, and we've all seen more of that as of late. I nonetheless believe that the ideas that you shared here are excellent and I thank you for doing so.