Apparently, one of the hosts of "Fox & Friends" were made to feel "guilty" after a visit to Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. Tales of Jefferson being a slave owner and this contradicting his soaring rhetoric in the Declaration of Independence and elsewhere concerning the equality of all raised uncomfortable feelings in “Fox & Friends” co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy. Her fellow co-hosts also chimed in with accusations about the Left trying to "re-write" American history.
Rewriting history? Yes, that’s absolutely what needs to happen! The history we were taught in school is incorrect, incomplete or both. The words of many of our “Founding Fathers” do not match their actions. All men are created equal? What they meant was “all White men who own property are created equal”, right? And if learning that makes you feel guilty, maybe that’s for the best.
We had to fight a Civil War, costing more than 600,000 lives just to begin the journey toward equality that still goes on today. The fact that Jefferson and the others could have prevented this in 1776 or 1789 and didn’t is appalling. It is something every American should learn and know. Don’t feel guilt over what they did, feel anger over what they and the generations that have followed have not done.
The language of the 13th amendment could, and should, have been a part of the original Constitution. Instead, the “peculiar institution” was allowed to thrive for 76 more years. Rather than acknowledging this, the F&F cast chose to be uncomfortable at being roused from the comfort of their own whitewashed pseudo-history. Rather than acknowledging the responsibility of the Founders and every generation since, they chose to parrot the Republican talking points of blame, invoking the term "woke" as the mantra used every time rational people point out the flaws in our national memory.
Pointing a blaming finger back 246 years at Jefferson, et al is not the answer. Looking back and getting the whole truth and disseminating that truth is the answer. This is the history that must be taught in our schools. Yes, Jefferson, Washington, and the rest did much to bring this country into existence. But they were deeply flawed in that they created a country with slavery and inequality in place. It should never be about how bad White people feel after learning this. It should be about facts and truth. That's the only way history should ever be taught and learned.