According to MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry, saying that Representative Paul Ryan is a “hard worker” is insensitive because his hard work is nothing compared to the hard work done by slaves.

On Saturday, conservative guest Alfonso Aguilar made the mistake of daring to refer to Ryan as “a hard worker when he goes to Washington,” prompting Harris-Perry to step in:

“I just want to pause on one thing,” she said. “Because I don’t disagree with you that I actually think Mr. Ryan is a great choice for this role, but 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. So, I feel you that he’s a hard worker. I do.

At this point, Aguilar (understandably) already looked pretty uncomfortable — but Harris-Perry wasn’t done. After all, the phrase “hard worker” is offensive not only to slaves, but also to working mothers as well:

“But in the context of relative privilege, and I just want to point out that when you talk about work-life balance and being a hard worker, the moms who don’t have health care who are working. But, we don’t call them hard workers. We call them failures. We call them people who are sucking off the system.”

Lesson learned. Paul Ryan is not a hard worker . . . he’s a “hard worker in the context of relative privilege.” In fact, I’ll make sure to add “in the context of relative privilege” to all of my compliments of others from now on.

— Katherine Timpf is a reporter for National Review.

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