An Open Letter to Bill O'Reilly from a Southern Girl
The people who follow me know I rarely dip my toe into the political waters here but today, I feel compelled to share my thoughts about the Bill O'Reilly-White House slave controversy.
***
Dear Mr. O'Reilly,I come to you to respectfully say, "you missed the point." You love history and taught it for years before entering the world of media. I respect that. However, I cannot understand why you felt the need to insert your "tip" into the discussion to begin with. Michelle Obama gave a lovely speech. She was celebrating how far our country had come since those days. The White House was built by slaves and she, as a black woman, celebrated that the society had changed enough that her daughters were enjoying the very lawn where slaves once worked.
What does it matter if they were well fed and housed?
I will not get into a debate about White House records and the letters of Abigail Adams. I am sure that you would eviscerate me in two words. It matters not if they wore chains or were whipped. They were slaves. And your commentary unnecessarily distracted from that.I come from a proud Southern family. My great-grandmother was a Daughter of the Confederacy. She had a collection of "Rebel" shot glasses. She was very proud of her grandparents who were plantation owners. And slave owners. As a child, she told me the same story many times. With great pride, she would recount how her grandparents released all their slaves telling them that they were all welcome to stay but that they had to walk out the gates and prove they were free. Then if they desired, they could walk back in. My great-grandmother then beamed every time as she told me that all the slaves came back.As a child, I thought this was a lovely story. I embraced her pride and thought myself better because my family was a "nice" plantation family. They "loved" their slaves. I wasn't a legacy of "those other mean slaveowners". As an adult, however, I came to understand something very simple.
It doesn't matter that they were "nice" slaveowners.
Slavery is inherently wrong. It is a sin of our past that we cannot deny or worse, minimize. To own another human being; to determine another's destiny whether well intended or not, is against all that the U.S. stands for. It is a crime against humanity no matter how nice they were, or how well they treated said persons.Adding your thoughts to the beautiful words of our FLOTUS so needlessly was beneath your love of history. I am not suggesting that you were justifying slavery.
I'm saying, Mr. O'Reilly, that you missed the point.
I know that your job involves sparking dialogue through controversy but this was a dialogue that needed not happen.Respectfully,Traci