Jillian Michaels’ recent appearance on CNN’s NewsNight quickly spiraled into controversy. The former Biggest Loser trainer argued that Smithsonian exhibits unfairly blame white Americans for slavery and imperialism. She claimed fewer than two percent of white Americans ever owned slaves and suggested the museum’s narrative promotes bias. Her remarks drew immediate pushback from Rep. Ritchie Torres, who reminded viewers that slavery existed as a system of white supremacy, not an isolated statistic.
CNN faced criticism for giving Michaels a platform, and many called on the network not to invite her back, but the exchange has ignited a larger discussion about historical accountability and how America remembers its past.
Jillian Michaels Defends a Disputed Narrative
On air, Michaels dismissed what she called a “white people bad” narrative in Smithsonian exhibits. She insisted that slavery cannot be tied to one race and argued that critics ignore the global history of forced labor. To strengthen her point, she emphasized that less than two percent of white Americans owned slaves, a figure frequently circulated in revisionist spaces online.
Phillip: We don't have time to litigate all of this.
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 14, 2025
Michaels: Of course we don't. Because then you're going to lose the argument. And everything is racialized, just like you're trying to do to me now.
Phillip: Excuse me? You brought up the question of whether or not slavery… pic.twitter.com/yYapbmkbKD
Panelists challenged her claim, with Abby Phillip pressing Michaels on why she framed systemic oppression as a question of individual ownership. Torres cut in to stress that slavery was not an accident of history but an institution built on white supremacy and economic exploitation. The exchange grew tense as critics across social media condemned Michaels’ remarks, viewing them as an attempt to minimize the role of whiteness in America’s racial hierarchy.
The Problem With the Two Percent Statistic
Michaels’ reliance on the “two percent” statistic quickly became a flashpoint. The figure comes from Civil War-era census data. In 1860, census records listed about 393,975 individuals as slaveholders out of a U.S. population of more than 31 million, which equals roughly 1.26 percent. On paper, this appears to show that only a small minority of whites owned enslaved people.
But as scholars point out, this framing obscures more than it reveals. The census counted the entire white population, including women, children, and residents of free states, against the number of formal slaveholders. It ignores the fact that slaveholding households often included extended families. Those relatives benefited from forced labor without being individually listed as owners. More importantly, it sidesteps the larger reality that slavery sustained the entire economy. Millions of enslaved people fueled profits for banks, shipping companies, factories, and universities. Governments also gained, enriching white society far beyond the planter class.
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Revisionism and the Politics of Victimhood
By rejecting institutional narratives and leaning on selective statistics, figures like Michaels blur the line between debate and distortion. The tactic is familiar. Some cite global slavery to distract from American history. Others invoke emancipation to eclipse the brutality that made it necessary. These moves fuel denial and reinforce a political project that reshapes how race, power, and history are taught. Michaels’ role as the mother of a Black daughter makes her attempt to downplay slavery’s legacy even more troubling.
Embed from Getty ImagesWhy Whitewashing History Matters
The uproar over Michaels’ remarks reflects more than one person’s misstep. It illustrates the risks of allowing misleading narratives to shape collective memory. As the United States prepares to mark its 250th anniversary, institutions like the Smithsonian face pressure to balance competing political demands. Yet efforts to dilute or sanitize slavery’s story undermine both historical truth and democratic accountability.
When history is rewritten to shield the powerful from scrutiny, it harms not only the past but also the present. Erasing the systemic foundations of slavery weakens understanding of ongoing racial inequities, leaving space for myths and stereotypes to thrive. Critics warn that this moment is not about one CNN panel but about a larger struggle over how America will tell its story in the years ahead.
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I feel bad for Michaels’ daughter. She will be unprepared for the world that awaits her. Not because she has a White mother but because she has a mother who has made a decision to disengage from the hard realities of the past and present of the United States. I hope there will be other factors e.g. education and access to Black culture, that play a role in her socialization before it is too late. The world does not need more Nana Akuas and Clarence Thomases.
By the way, in a world in which the arts and humanities are constantly being sidelined and defunded (e.g. right now in universities) in favour of STEM, these sorts of debates are a reminder of why the world cannot survive on STEM alone.