Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

Fox News Hosts Chastise Thomas Jefferson's Plantation Estate For Teaching Guests About Slavery

Fox News Hosts Chastise Thomas Jefferson's Plantation Estate For Teaching Guests About Slavery
Fox News

Fox News was criticized after dedicating a segment to complaining Monticello—historic primary plantation residence of Thomas Jefferson—is trying to guilt people by educating guests about slavery.

In particular,Fox & Friends weekend hosts Rachel Campos-Duffy and Pete Hegseth pointed to a recent New York Post article that accused Monticello—currently owned and operated by the nonprofit Thomas Jefferson Foundation that teaches guests about the plantation's history as well as Jefferson's life—of "going woke" by teaching the truth about slavery.


According to Hegseth, Monticello is now all about “how terrible Thomas Jefferson was because he was a slave owner” and presents a “one-sided point of view that makes Thomas Jefferson a bad guy in his own home.”

Campos-Duffy, meanwhile, said that while the history of slavery is "a terrible history we should talk about," she insisted that "we should not feel guilty or ashamed of our leaders when we go and visit the people who brought us the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence."

You can hear what they said in the video below.

Slavery was in fact a brutal legal institution, comprising the enslavement of Blacks who were kidnapped from their homes and families and forced to reside in a foreign land where they served as the economic backbone of the American South.

The treatment of slaves in the United States varied widely depending on conditions, time, and place, but in general it was brutal, especially on plantations. Whippings and rape were routine. The asymmetrical power dynamics between enslaved Blacks and White slaveowners gave Whites both the de facto and de jure freedoms to bend their property to their will.

Jefferson was a wealthy landholder and slaveowner who used slave labor for his household, plantation, and workshops. Approximately 100 slaves lived at Monticello at any given time.

While Jefferson was noted to have misgivings about slavery, he was open in his belief that emancipation should be a gradual process and was for the most part publicly silent on the issue of slavery and emancipation during his presidency.

Scholars remain divided on whether Jefferson truly condemned slavery and how he changed and there still persists controversy in regard to whether there was a sexual relationship between Jefferson and his slave and sister-in-law, Sally Hemings, and whether he fathered some or all of her six recorded children.

In June 2018, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation opened an exhibit titled Life of Sally Hemings, and affirmed that it was treating as a settled issue that Jefferson was the father of her known children.

Many have criticized Fox News in the wake of the segment.



The Fox News segment criticizing the exhibits at Monticello is part of a wider trend among conservatives to rewrite some of the bloodiest and darkest moments in American history.

False claims schools have been teaching critical race theory to young children have also inflamed hostilities among the right-wing, particularly since the publication of The 1619 Project, which repositions the consequences and legacy of slavery as elements vital to the historical narrative.

Critical race theory is a body of legal and academic scholarship that aims to examine how racism and disparate racial outcomes have shaped public policy via often implicit social and institutional dynamics.

Although critical race theory is just one branch of an incredibly varied arena of academic scholarship, it has nonetheless galvanized critics and threatened to obfuscate nationwide discussions about racial reconciliation, equity, and justice.

More from Trending

Keira Knightly in 'Love Actually'
Universal Pictures

Keira Knightley Admits Infamous 'Love Actually' Scene Felt 'Quite Creepy' To Film

UK actor Keira Knightley recalled filming the iconic cue card scene from the 2003 Christmas rom-com Love Actually was kinda "creepy."

The Richard Curtis-directed film featured a mostly British who's who of famous actors and young up-and-comers playing characters in various stages of relationships featured in separate storylines that eventually interconnect.

Keep ReadingShow less
Nancy Mace
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Nancy Mace Miffed After Video Of Her Locking Lips With Another Woman Resurfaces

South Carolina Republican Representative Nancy Mace is not happy after video from 2016 of her "baby birding" a shot of alcohol into another woman's mouth resurfaced.

The video, resurfaced by The Daily Mail, shows Mace in a kitchen pouring a shot of alcohol into her mouth, then spitting it into another woman’s mouth. The second woman, wearing a “TRUMP” t-shirt, passed the shot to a man, who in turn spit it into a fourth person’s mouth before vomiting on the floor.

Keep ReadingShow less
Ryan Murphy; Luigi Mangione
Gregg DeGuire/Variety via Getty Images, MyPenn

Fans Want Ryan Murphy To Direct Luigi Mangione Series—And They Know Who Should Play Him

Luigi Mangione is facing charges, including second-degree murder, after the 26-year-old was accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside the New York Hilton Midtown hotel on December 4.

Before the suspect's arrest on Sunday at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, the public was obsessed with updates on the manhunt, especially after Mangione was named a "strong person of interest."

Keep ReadingShow less
Donald Trump
NBC

Trump Proves He Doesn't Understand How Citizenship Works In Bonkers Interview

President-elect Donald Trump was criticized after he openly lied about birthright citizenship and showed he doesn't understand how it works in an interview with Meet the Press on Sunday.

Birthright citizenship is a legal concept that grants citizenship automatically at birth. It exists in two forms: ancestry-based citizenship and birthplace-based citizenship. The latter, known as jus soli, a Latin term meaning "right of the soil," grants citizenship based on the location of birth.

Keep ReadingShow less
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC

77 Nobel Prize Winners Write Open Letter Urging Senate Not To Confirm RFK Jr. As HHS Secretary

A group of 77 Nobel laureates wrote an open letter to Senate lawmakers stressing that confirming Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as President-elect Donald Trump's Secretary of Health and Human Services "would put the public’s health in jeopardy and undermine America’s global leadership in health science."

The letter, obtained by The New York Times, represents a rare move by Nobel laureates, marking the first time in recent memory they have collectively opposed a Cabinet nominee, according to Richard Roberts, the 1993 Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, who helped draft it.

Keep ReadingShow less