If you didn’t know, MSNBC’s wacky weekend host Melissa Harris-Perry recently chastised a guest on her show for using the term “hard worker.” On using the “offensive” term, she whined:
I want us to be super careful when we use the language ‘hard worker.’ Because I actually keep an image of folks working in cotton fields on my office wall, because it is a reminder about what hard work looks like.
As he’s been known to do in the past, CNN’s host of Somebody’s Gotta Do It , Mike Rowe, took to his website to set the hyper-sensitive Harris-Perry straight on the meaning of the term “hard worker” and the difference between it and slavery. After noting “there is no longer a limit to what people can be offended by,” Rowe writes:
First of all, slavery is not “hard work;” it’s forced labor. There’s a big difference. Likewise, slaves are not workers; they are by definition, property. They have no freedom, no hope, and no rights. Yes, they work hard, obviously. But there can be no “work ethic” among slaves, because the slave has no choice in the matter.
Workers on the other hand, have free will. They are free to work as hard as they wish. Or not. The choice is theirs. And their decision to work hard, or not, is not a function of compliance or coercion; it’s a reflection of character and ambition.
This business of conflating hard work with forced labor not only minimizes the importance of a decent work ethic, it diminishes the unspeakable horror of slavery. Unfortunately, people do this all the time. We routinely describe bosses as “slave-drivers,” and paychecks as “slave’s wages.” Melissa though, has come at it from the other side. She’s suggesting that because certain “hard workers” are not as prosperous as other “hard workers” — like the people on her office wall — we should all be “super-careful” about overly-praising hard work.
I suspect this is because Melissa believes — as do many others — that success today is mostly a function of what she calls, “relative privilege.” This is fancy talk for the simple fact that life is unfair, and some people are born with more advantages than others. It’s also a fine way to prepare the unsuspecting viewer for the extraordinary suggestion that slavery is proof-positive that hard work doesn’t pay off.”
Last week, The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple called out Harris-Perry on her own usage of the term “hard worker” and cited many examples. Surprise. A liberal "journalist" is a hypocrite.
It’s not every day you see a famous person outright school a liberal “journalist” by bringing attention to their arrogance and stupidity, but when they do, it’s certainly entertaining.
