Housing
and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson addresses his employees March 6,
2017 in Washington, D.C. Carson has been criticized for equating slaves and
immigrants during his speech. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson has
taken a lot of heat over the past 24 hours for calling slaves “immigrants,” but
it turns out former President Barack Obama drew a similar comparison in 2015.
“That’s what America is about, a land of dreams and
opportunity,” Carson said during his inaugural address to the HUD staff. “There
were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships, 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,” he added.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People was bewildered by the comparison, actor
Samuel L. Jackson slammed Carson for the statement and MoveOn’s national
spokeswoman said the HUD secretary “needs to revisit” the National Museum of
African-American History and Culture.
But, as Breitbart’s White House correspondent Charlie
Spiering pointed out, Carson’s comments are not without precedent. In fact,
Obama equated slaves and immigrants during a naturalization ceremony in
December 2015.
Lots of nastiness directed @RealBenCarson - but in 2015 President Obama also referred to the slaves as immigrants http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=111241
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The former president, a Democrat, made the comments when he was explaining that coming to the U.S. isn’t necessarily “easy for new immigrants.”
“Certainly,” Obama explained, “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.”
Former
President Barack Obama speaks during a naturalization ceremony at the National
Archives in Washington, D.C., Dec. 15, 2015, on the 224th Anniversary of the
Bill of Rights. Obama compared immigrants and slaves during his address. (JIM
WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)
“But, like you, they no doubt found inspiration in all
those who had come before them,” he continued. “And they were able to muster
faith that, here in America, they might build a better life and give their
children something more.”
And it appears this comparison was a common thread in
Obama’s speeches during naturalization ceremonies. In July 2012, he said: “We
are a nation of immigrants.”
“Unless you are one of the first Americans, a Native
American, we are all descended from folks who came from someplace else —
whether they arrived on the Mayflower or on a slave ship, whether they came
through Ellis Island or crossed the Rio Grande,” Obama said.
