>> So Twitter user posted a screenshot of a Google review, it's at the McLeod Plantation
Historic Site in Charleston.
And it's getting a lot of attention, and you just have to see, cuz I'm gonna read the entire
review.
A woman named Carla, she wrote, my husband and I were extremely disappointed in this
tour.
We didn't come to hear a lecture on how the white people treated slaves.
We came to get this history of a southern plantation and get a tour of the house and
grounds.
The tour guide was so radical about slave treatment, we felt we were being lectured
and bashed about the slavery.
My ancestors were from Sicily, never owned slaves.
And my husband's were German, and none of his ever owned slaves.
I am by far not a racist or against all Americans having equal rights, but this was my vacation.
And now we are crossing all plantation tours off our list, it was just not what we expected.
I'll go back to Louisiana and see some real plantations that are so much more enjoyable
to tour.
And wait, before you react, I want you to know that a little bit before the show started,
I found another review.
>> My God.
>> There is another one, and so then I started scrolling down the thing, posted this one,
too.
I'm not pleased with the guide, this is a woman named Vicki.
Vicki said she was not pleased with the guide.
He talked about slavery in general, slavery around the plantation, and how they were mistreated.
We got very little information about the McLeod family and their relationships or their family's
role during this time.
We were shown the slaves' living quarters and outside kitchen first.
So we were finally able to walk in the house, no furniture of that time period in the house,
no furniture at all.
Don't waste your money.
I don't know about the other guides, but this one was stirring the pot.
And then just one last thing, New York Times columnist jbouie tweeted this in response.
He said, the fact that many Americans think of plantations as vacation destinations to
be enjoyed like Disney World is sort of all you need to know to understand how we got
to this place in our politics.
>> Wow, I hadn't seen that second one.
>> The second one, yeah.
>> I mean, my mind was already blown by the first one.
I'm sorry, did we not include a roller coaster for you?
>> It's not okay.
>> Yeah, but this was my vacation and I am crossing off plantations from my list, they
are bummers.
They're kind of supposed to be bummers.
>> Hello.
>> Right, but the second one is actually worse, cuz they're like, we go out there and learn
about the slaves and the slave plantation.
What about the poor McLeod family that owned them?
My god, they wrote that with a straight face, they really meant it and they gave it a one
star.
I had no fun at all in this movie.
>> I mean, this one kind of reminds me of a Jordan Peele movie, like Get Out, or that
kind of thing.
Because I think it's just like, how tourism and cultural heritage and cultural sites actually
neuter, they can cut it off, the history and the realities behind places.
And actually learning about stuff can be enriching and fun.
I know I'm a professor, so I believe in that very much.
But I think, more relevantly to this point, is how the absence of actually being clear
and transparent about the trauma associated with these places allows us to normalize and
perpetuate systems of white supremacy in this country.
Not just with Trump, but just with the ways black people are treated in this country by
the police, by our criminal justice system and moreover.
>> America loves to honor a slave owner, they just do.
Mount Rushmore, Stone Mountain- >> Thomas Jefferson.
>> Thomas Jefferson, all of our founding fathers were terrible people.
A broken clock is right twice a day, they were also really terrible people.
And if we're honest about how terrible it is for Thomas Jefferson to be a child rapist,
to be a slave holder, then people wouldn't be confused about this.
I think Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds got married on a plantation, who gets married
on rape and murder grounds?
Dancing on top of graves is never a good thing, that's specifically seen as a bad thing.
Top Chef filmed a TV show at a plantation.
It's all bad, slave owners were terrible people, full stop.
>> Yeah, so I actually went to the plantation in Charleston, not the, there's several, unfortunately.
And I went to the slave market as well, I wanna tell you about that experience in a
second, cuz it's really interesting.
But before we got started on the story, during the break, Brooke found the second one before
we went on air, and I didn't know about it.
And I was telling these guys, I was like, do people go to the slave plantation and think,
I wonder how it would have been to be the owners?
Cuz it had never occurred to me until I read the first review.
I went to go learn about slavery, cuz it's a slave plantation.
But it never crossed my mind that somebody would empathize or put themselves in the perspective
of the slave owners.
And the second review was like, well, I wanna know how the McLeod family lived.
How'd they live, I mean, they imprisoned and enslaved and raped and kidnapped and murdered
people, that's how they lived.
And now they're like, now you're talking about white supremacy.
Slavery was white supremacy, by definition, that's the whole point, right?
And so, but it doesn't occur to them, I'm just blown away by this.
We didn't come here to hear a lecture on how white people treated slaves.
Then why the hell did you go to a slave plantation?
>> The only reason to go, right?
>> Just go anywhere else.
>> To get the honest history about what happened, that's the only reason you go.
>> So the reason I went was to hear how the slaves lived in a slave.
Somebody else on Twitter reacted it by saying, if you go to Auschwitz, do you go, I didn't
have any fun here?
Or, I'm crossing Auschwitz off my vacation list.
And then people get upset by that, what are you getting upset about?
Now, look I don't want to get into comparing tragedies and which one was worse, etc, but
they're both horrific.
If you can't see that, and if you think, well, Auschwitz, well, obviously, we're not gonna
have a barbecue there.
We're not gonna get married at Auschwitz, we're not gonna do any of those things.
But a slave plantation, sure, why not?
>> Because the house is beautiful, the trees, it's so green.
But America is so anti-black, that it is easier for people to wrap their, two terrible, terrible
tragedies.
It is just easier for the majority of Americans, and because of how we operate, we still honor
slave owners.
It's just easier for people to wrap their minds around, okay, this is just bad, this,
well, there's nuance, no there's not.
>> And I'll just say this, in places like these plantations lie great opportunities
for us.
And not for people to just feel terrible about themselves or what happened.
I noticed a bunch of the comments were like, hey, I didn't do that, my family didn't do
that.
It's not about guilt, it's about enriching oneself and our society by just learning what
happened so we can do better.
>> Yeah, and look- >> It may be fun and interesting.
>> Yeah, so as a Turk, I have an interesting perspective on this because, look, in the
back of the people always say, America wasn't the only one doing slavery.
Congratulations on having read a book.
>> That's true, right, and in fact, almost everyone taken in battle were treated as slaves
300 years ago, etc.
And even further into that, obviously, even sometimes today.
And Turks are on both sides of that, actually.
Somebody on my dad's side, our original ancestor that we were named after, was taken prisoner
and was treated as a slave for some time.
But Turks also did plenty of that as the oppressors, right?
And now I'm an American, but when I go to a slave plantation to learn, I don't feel
guilty, what a weird thing to feel.
She said, my husband's family's from Germany and I'm from Sicily.
But nobody blamed you, nobody said it was your fault.
No, I never thought it was my fault.
But as an American now, I feel bad overall that that happened in this country that I
love.
But it did happen and it has a thousand faults.
That doesn't mean you don't love it, that doesn't mean we can't improve it, that doesn't
mean we can't make it great.
But it definitely happened, it's a weird thing to feel guilty about, in a sense.
Wait, what's in your head that's making you think it's about you, right?
And just because your ancestors are originally from a different country and did not participate
in America at that time, doesn't mean you can't think that it was terrible, and that
your heart goes out to those people.
I wasn't in Germany at the time of the Holocaust, but my heart goes out to the Jews, and the
Roma, and the Poles, etc.
It's not that hard, you just have to empathize with other people for a second.
>> Yeah, it's also, I think, and I know it's hard to swallow for a lot of people.
Even though your ancestors may not have been from this country, and this and that.
Because of the way you look in this country, you do still benefit from the systems that
still keep people who look like that oppressed.
You still do, it's just how this country works.
And so it's like nobody is saying, that's another reason to just hush.
You know what I mean, everything is not about you.
>> It's as if they're afraid that you might feel guilty-
>> Or that somebody is like, right, you feel guilty, and so-
>> No, guys, I think actually, you're being too, and I like the way, you give them too
much credit.
I like that we didn't give their last names cuz it isn't about that.
It's about the idea and the concept.
But obviously, they've got some thoughts in their heads about where white people belong
as opposed to black people.
That's why they randomly feel like, whoa, why are you saying this about me?
Nobody said anything about you, why do you think it's about you, because of something
in your head, right?
And so, look, finally, I'll get to my experience there.
I think you should definitely go to slave plantations, but not as part of a fun tour
you were expecting, right?
And it's incredibly educational.
>> It's a museum.
>> And it's, if you're a decent person, heartwrenching.
So I talked about some aspects of this before, one of the things I was most, I knew it, I'd
read it in books.
But it's different when you're there, and you see the tiny little house that they, of
course, put the slaves in, if they had a house at all.
And then the first rule was, never educate the slaves.
And I thought, god, that is so interesting.
Now that tells you two things, one, education is the most powerful thing there is, and two,
they knew that they were equal.
They knew, if they have access to education, they can learn just like us, and then there'll
be an uprising, etc.
So all that talk of inferiority they knew was BS, of course they knew it was BS, they're
like, god forbid they should get a book.
Cuz if you really thought they were inferior, why would you care?
Why do I care if I, hey, don't give the cows books, right?
You would never say that, so they were lying all the time.
I mean, it's so irrelevant that they were lying because they were slave owners, etc.
But it gives you a sense of the importance of education and oppression, etc.
But to me, even more haunting than the plantation was the slave market in Charleston.
And if you've never gone, you should go, but again, not as some sort of fun tour, okay?
And if you think it was gonna be fun, no.
So I couldn't leave, my friends left, and we had to go to some other event, I just couldn't
stop reading.
And so they would oil up the kids, so that their bodies looked leaner and more muscular,
so they can get a higher price.
And they described how they separated the families.
And how they would mistreat the slaves on the way, but before they sold them, for two
weeks they would treat them really well and they would feed them really well, to get a
higher price.
And just how barbaric human beings can be to one another.
You can't put aside race, it was about race, but I'm saying, guys, if you're white, it
isn't about blaming you.
Put aside race in that context and think about how horrible human beings can be to one another,
so that we don't repeat mistakes like that.
And so you're gonna say, well, of course we're not gonna do slavery, there's slavery in Libya
today, right?
>> That's just what I was gonna say, to reckon with what's actually happening now in some
parts of the world, too.
>> And not only that, I hope to god America never goes back there, to where it was and
how horrific it was.
But we're separating families today.
>> Exactly.
>> Have we really learned all those lessons?
And I'm afraid we haven't.
So you should go, but not with these expectations.