Ben Carson just made a hideously off-base comment about slavery in America

In Secretary Ben Carson’s first speech to the staff at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which he now runs, Carson emphasized fairness and hard work. Which was great, until he got to the part where he called African slaves “immigrants.”

Yup. You heard that right. That whole Middle Passage thing? Just a particularly difficult route to the land of dreams and opportunity.

Carson made the comments while expounding that America is a “can-do” society, not a “what can you do for me” society. Which is interesting, since the whole operating concept behind chattel slavery is “what can you do for me because you are my property.”

Seriously, you gotta watch it to believe it:

“That’s what America is about,” Carson said. “A land of dreams and opportunity. There were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships, worked even longer, even harder, for less.”

SKRRRRT.  So wait. Were there also immigrants there hanging with the slaves? Is that what you meant? And by less, do you mean like, three-fifths less, perhaps?

“But they too had a dream,” Carson continued, “that their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, great grandsons, great granddaughters might pursue prosperity and happiness in this land.”

Sir. Ben. Honey. Listen. This isn’t brain surgery. Let Merriam-Webster talk to you. This is what the word “immigrant” means:

And this is what America was practicing when it forcibly brought Africans onto the bottom of those slave ships.