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Ben Carson just referred to slaves as 'immigrants'[W:204]

Re: Ben Carson just referred to slaves as 'immigrants'

Hawkeye10 said:
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/immigration


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration

Someone needs to explain to me how we know that Carson used the word wrong, as the definitions say nothing to indicate that those who move by way of the slave trade have not Immigrated, are not immigrants.
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So if an American teenage runaway is kidnapped in New York City and sold into sex slavery in Thailand, she's technically an immigrant to Thailand.
 
Re: Ben Carson just referred to slaves as 'immigrants'

Paperview said:
This is the first public speech from our new HUD Cabinet Secretary, folks:

"Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson referred to slaves as "immigrants" while speaking Monday to department employees.
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Uh oh. Does the left now switch to trying to get him to resign, or stay on Sessions? I guess they will stay on Sessions since this was something Carson did on his own. Plus, he's black, so it's harder to get him on something he said about slavery.

They'll use whatever conjured up thing that they will distill from their wiretaps on him, which will leak out when they are ready.
 
Re: Ben Carson just referred to slaves as 'immigrants'

tres borrachos said:
Digesting?:shock:
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Fixed, thank you for that. I was a victim of disgust at the post, haste and spell check.
 
Re: Ben Carson just referred to slaves as 'immigrants'

tres borrachos said:
My ancestors were Irish. They were starved by the British. That doesn't change the fact that the Irish "slaves" were prisoners and not free.
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They were sold/auctioned to human traders, packed into the hulls of ships, leaving their families behind.

Sound a Helluva lot like slavery to me.
 
Re: Ben Carson just referred to slaves as 'immigrants'

MaggieD said:
The antonym of immigrant is native. They were immigrants.
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They were technically immigrants but it's not like they came to better themselves or their families.
 
Re: Ben Carson just referred to slaves as 'immigrants'

MaggieD said:
The antonym of immigrant is native. They were immigrants.
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No, they were hostages who were kidnapped from their native land.
 
Re: Ben Carson just referred to slaves as 'immigrants'

WCH said:
They were sold/auctioned to human traders, packed into the hulls of ships, leaving their families behind.

Sound a Helluva lot like slavery to me.
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And they weren't forced to come to the US against their will, and they were free when they paid off the sponsor of the indenture.
 
Re: Ben Carson just referred to slaves as 'immigrants'

tres borrachos said:
And unlike slaves, they weren't captured from their villages and sold without anyone knowing what happened to them. Also an indenture had a time limit, and after the time was up, the person was free. Nobody had "ownership" of the servant, just a claim to his labor for the agreed upon time.

There is a huge difference.
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That was very rare. I know people like to create this perception that Europeans were running around the African continent bagging blacks in the night and stuffing them into the holds of slave ships but that wasn't the reality. The reality was that almost all slaves destined for the colonies were purchased from African slave markets that pre-dated European entry by nearly 1,000 years. People knew what happened to you because slavery was the price you paid when you lost a war against a rival African tribe or kingdom - wars which supplied the African slave trade from the very beginning to the present day.

As for the nature of the relationship between the indentured servants and the contract holders - you can't separate the man or woman from their labor. If you owned the contract you owned the person and there was very little freedom of movement.
 
Re: Ben Carson just referred to slaves as 'immigrants'

tres borrachos said:
So if an American teenage runaway is kidnapped in New York City and sold into sex slavery in Thailand, she's technically an immigrant to Thailand.
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Technically, I suppose. Not sure what drives Carson to make mind-boggling statements like this though.
 
Re: Ben Carson just referred to slaves as 'immigrants'

Paperview said:
This is the first public speech from our new HUD Cabinet Secretary, folks:

"Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson referred to slaves as "immigrants" while speaking Monday to department employees.

"That's what America is about, a land of dreams and opportunity," Carson said. "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."

Ben Carson just referred to slaves as 'immigrants'

Um, Ben, I think you might need a review of the definition of immigrant.

& I'm pretty sure they didn't "come here" to pursue "Prosperity and Happiness in this Land"
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They were immigrants... that went through 400 years of Extreme Vetting and Enhanced Interrogation.
 
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Re: Ben Carson just referred to slaves as 'immigrants'

Hawkeye10 said:
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/immigration


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration

Someone needs to explain to me how we know that Carson used the word wrong, as the definitions say nothing to indicate that those who move by way of the slave trade have not Immigrated, are not immigrants.
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It doesn't seem to make a difference what the circumstances are. The word just means moving from one country to another, when referring to people.
 
Re: Ben Carson just referred to slaves as 'immigrants'

tres borrachos said:
So if an American teenage runaway is kidnapped in New York City and sold into sex slavery in Thailand, she's technically an immigrant to Thailand.
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Arguably...Maybe the problem is not Carson but rather a failure of language, which would be a failure which has all along the way been allowed, it which case throwing stones at Carson is not fair to him and is not productive, what we would need to do in that case is to improve the english language.

The immigration conversation has never had adequate language to express the unique experience of black Americans. It has been suggested more than once that blacks should have done like other “immigrants” and overcome initial discrimination through hard work and education to join the American mainstream of success. The debate has never recognized the need for a unique term to distinguish the black experience from that of other “immigrant” groups. But now that an African-American president of the United States is the point person on the national debate about immigration, it’s time that the black perspective on immigration be examined.

What term could properly capture the reality of a people who were involuntarily imported as slaves? Surely the word “immigrant” is insufficient to that task. “Human trafficking” has recently been introduced to the immigration debate, mainly in reference to what many call “modern-day slavery” involving agricultural, sweatshop, domestic and sex workers. These modern-day slaves come primarily from Mexico, Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia. Human trafficking seems to be just as good at describing the old-fashioned African slavery as the modern-day type. Black people were not immigrants; we were trafficked people.
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The Rev. Madison Shockley: Black People Are Not ?Immigrants? - Truthdig


Note: I have seen this sort of copy/paste described at DP as spam. I dont agree, this is an argument that I copy/pasted, done as well or better than I could say it myself, thus me being smarter than the average bear I am not going to go through all the work required to reinvent the wheel. The argument is the thing, and the best quality should be wanted. I strenuously object to the DP custom of discouraging our arguments here being powered in part by DP OUTSIDERS.
 
Re: Ben Carson just referred to slaves as 'immigrants'

Napoleon said:
That was very rare. I know people like to create this perception that Europeans were running around the African continent bagging blacks in the night and stuffing them into the holds of slave ships but that was the reality. The reality was the almost all slaves destined for the colonies were purchased from African slave markets that pre-dated European entry by nearly 1,000 years. People knew what happened to you because slavery was the price you paid when you lost a war against a rival African tribe or nation - wars which supplied the African slave trade from the very beginning to the present day.

As for the nature of the relationship between the indentured servants and the contract holders - you can't separate the man or woman from their labor. If you owned the contract you owned the person and there was very little freedom of movement.
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Not sure why you felt the need to post this as it doesn't have anything to do with what we're discussing. I'm not asking for a history lesson on what happened with rival tribes in Africa, which I do also know about. It's about the difference between being captured as a slave, which my ancestors weren't, and being an indenture servant, which my ancestors were.
 
Re: Ben Carson just referred to slaves as 'immigrants'

rocket88 said:
Technically, I suppose. Not sure what drives Carson to make mind-boggling statements like this though.
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I like Carson. I don't think there was any malicious intent in what he said. He just needs to think more before he speaks. This wasn't his finest moment.
 
Re: Ben Carson just referred to slaves as 'immigrants'

Lord Tammerlain said:
I believe the dreams they had were much different than the one Carson is saying they had. They certainly did not volunteer to be an immigrant
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I agree with you.
 
Re: Ben Carson just referred to slaves as 'immigrants'

Anthony60 said:
It doesn't seem to make a difference what the circumstances are. The word just means moving from one country to another, when referring to people.
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That's my thesis, now I am waiting to see if anyone can disprove it.

If I am right then there are lots of people who are found not being fair to Carson.
 
Re: Ben Carson just referred to slaves as 'immigrants'

disneydude said:
Seriously Maggie.....when did you go off the deep end? It is utterly ridiculous to try to make a claim that slaves were immigrants. Trying to do gymnastics to use an antonym to attempt to rationalize such a silly contention is just unbecoming.
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I think it has something to do with the ultra-partisan left. But I can't be sure. Would it be okay if I described them as foreigners, r is slave the only appropriate noun?
 
Re: Ben Carson just referred to slaves as 'immigrants'

disneydude said:
Seriously Maggie.....when did you go off the deep end? It is utterly ridiculous to try to make a claim that slaves were immigrants. Trying to do gymnastics to use an antonym to attempt to rationalize such a silly contention is just unbecoming.
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I think it has something to do with the ultra-partisan left. But I can't be sure. Would it be okay if I described them as foreigners or is slave the only appropriate noun?
 
Re: Ben Carson just referred to slaves as 'immigrants'

Paperview said:
This is the first public speech from our new HUD Cabinet Secretary, folks:

"Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson referred to slaves as "immigrants" while speaking Monday to department employees.

"That's what America is about, a land of dreams and opportunity," Carson said. "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."

Ben Carson just referred to slaves as 'immigrants'

Um, Ben, I think you might need a review of the definition of immigrant.

& I'm pretty sure they didn't "come here" to pursue "Prosperity and Happiness in this Land"
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About as daft as his theory that the pyramids of egypt were simply grain storage housing.
 
Re: Ben Carson just referred to slaves as 'immigrants'

Moot said:
Indentured servants were bought and sold the same as slaves....and counted as 3/5 a person in the constitution.
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But they had more rights than chattel slaves.
 
Re: Ben Carson just referred to slaves as 'immigrants'

tres borrachos said:
And they weren't forced to come to the US against their will, and they were free when they paid off the sponsor of the indenture.
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After 7 to 20 years. You wanna work for free that long?
 
Re: Ben Carson just referred to slaves as 'immigrants'

I just hope all these white Liberals can straighten Ben Carson out on this slavery business.
 
Re: Ben Carson just referred to slaves as 'immigrants'

MaggieD said:
I think it has something to do with the ultra-partisan left. But I can't be sure. Would it be okay if I described them as foreigners, r is slave the only appropriate noun?
Click to expand...

Wow.

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