On March 6, 2017, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson, addressed the Department’s employees. During his speech, Carson referred to slaves as “…immigrants who came in the bottom of slave ships, who worked even longer, even harder, for less, but they too had a dream that one day their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, great grandsons, great granddaughters might pursue prosperity and happiness in this land.”
The social media uproar over comparing slaves to immigrants was immediate and hostile to Carson’s remarks. Those on the right of American politics were quick to point to President Obama’s speech during a December 2015 naturalization ceremony, in which he said, “Certainly, it wasn’t easy for those of African heritage who had not come here voluntarily and yet in their own way were immigrants themselves. There was discrimination and hardship and poverty.”
Just as Carson was wrong on March 6, 2017, President Obama was wrong at that December 2015 ceremony. To his credit, Carson recognized that he was wrong and “walked back” his comments on his Facebook page later that day.
Here’s why both President Obama and Secretary Carson got it wrong:
– Merriam-Webster defines an Immigrant as: a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence.
– The U. S. Supreme Court in the 1857 decision, Dred Scot v. Sanford, ruled that:
a) The words “people of the United States” and “citizens” are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing;
b) African slaves and their descendants are not citizens under the U. S. Constitution and can not claim any of the rights and privileges the document affords;
c) African slaves are a designated class that could be “bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it….” and;
d) African slaves were “…altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery.”
So, African slaves whose social and political conditions were recognized as a legally authorized status had no hope of obtaining the “American Dream” that other immigrants sought until the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments in 1870. These Amendments to the U. S. Constitution, abolished slavery, granted citizenship to the freed African slaves and prohibited states from disenfranchising voters “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
But prior to these Amendments, African slaves were not recognized as people, but rather as property like livestock, jewelry, furniture and clothes. And like livestock, they could not decide for themselves their future or self-determine their destiny. The word immigrant does not apply to the African slave or his progeny, but the term Forced or Involuntary Migrant does. That – Ben Carson eventually got right on his Facebook post.
Awesome!