Welcome back.
Now, while the glass ceiling may have been shattered
last night, hearts are still shattering
over Michelle Obama's speech from Monday.
I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves.
And I watch my daughters,
two beautiful, intelligent,
black young women, playing with their dogs
on the White House lawn.
(sniffling)
I'm not crying.
I'm just allergic.
Well, this speech wasn't just
a reflection of her time as first lady.
It spoke to how far we've come as a nation,
but Bill O'Reilly thought he should make a clarification
on a key racial issue.
Michelle Obama is essentially correct in citing slaves
as builders of the White House,
but there were others working as well.
Slaves that worked there were well fed and had decent lodgings
provided by the government.
(sputters)
Wh...?
Your takeaway about slavery
is that they were well fed?
Ooh.
(in Southern accent): Thank you, Massa O'Reilly,
for-for-for clarifying me about slavery.
-(applause, cheering) -I appreciate that.
Oh, oh, you know what, sir?
If'n I could read, I sure would wants to read
your book about killing Lincoln.
Course I ain't allowed to read, seeing as I'm a slave and all,
but sounds to me like he did
the wrong thing by freeing them slaves.
How you gonna free...
(laughing): how you gonna free people
with a full belly?
See, my slave bit is starting to wear off already.
Now, I don't know what's worse, that Bill O'Reilly Fox-splained
slavery or that people all over the Internet needed him to.
For more, we turn to nightly show contributor
Franchesca Ramsey
with another installment of #HashItOut.
(cheering and applause)
Thanks, Larry.
So, apparently, some people are upset that black people
are in the White House and that some black people
built the White House.
Check out some of these Tweets.
"Fact check: The White House was not built by slaves.
Only one third of the workers were slaves."
Fact check: Putting "fact check"
in front of a bull(bleep) quote, doesn't make it a fact.
(whooping and applause)
And if only one-third of the workers were slaves,
that means the White House was built by slaves.
(cheers and applause)
That just means only two-thirds of the workers
got to go home at night.
That's how fractions work.
But maybe you stopped paying attention to fractions
after the three-fifths compromise.
(applause, cheering)
"Slaves didn't build the White House,
carpenters did."
This is going to blow your mind.
Some of the slaves were also carpenters.
Just like Bill O'Reilly can be a TV personality
and a condescending asshole.
(cheers and applause)
"The White House was not built solely,
or even primarily by slaves who were paid for work."
First of all, is that a Dr. Evil meme?
This meme is old enough to vote.
Not solely built by slaves?
Can please get out of here
with this #AllJobsMatter (bleep)?
But I get it.
You do these mental gymnastics
because it's uncomfortable to acknowledge this country
was built in part by slaves,
and that we benefit from their work.
But what else do you think they were doing?
"We Shall Overcome" isn't a song about how hard it is
to play the banjo.
And the worst part,
if you hadn't been so caught up on the word "slavery,"
you would have realized that Michelle Obama
was saying something positive.
Yes, the White House was built by slaves,
which is why it's such a big deal
that we have a black president.
If you have a problem with this,
then I'm going to guess it only is because of who is saying it,
so let me try and put this into words that you can understand.
(with accent): "I wake up every morning...
(cheers and applause)
...in a house that was built by slaves."
Is that better?
No, it's not better!
Franchesca Ramsey, everybody!
We'll be right back.