Trevor Noah has news for Ben Carson: Slaves were not immigrants.
"The Daily Show" host dedicated a portion of the Comedy Central show Tuesday night to pick apart the United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development's argument that slaves "were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships, worked even longer, even harder, for less."
Noah joked, "Calling slaves immigrants is like saying, 'It's not kidnapping, that person just got a free vacation in a basement!'"
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Carson defended his statement by telling a Sirius XM radio show, "If you come from outside to inside, you're an immigrant," and advised listeners to "look up the word immigrant."
So that's exactly what Noah did. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, an immigrant is defined as, "A person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence."
Noah broke down exactly why slaves would not meet that definition.
"Firstly, slaves weren't considered people, they were considered property," Noah said. "Secondly, they didn't come to America, they were taken by force. Eddie Murphy came to America. Kunta Kinte was brought. Big difference, people.”
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Noah also recognized that Obama also compared slaves to immigrants during a speech once, but argued, "It doesn't matter who says it. Slaves weren't immigrants."
"Because an immigrant has choice. They choose the country they're going to because they hope it will bring them a better life," Noah said. "Saying that slaves are just another group of immigrants erases how black people were uniquely oppressed in America. It helps justify blaming African-Americans for their hardships."
Noah ended the segment by showing a trailer for "12 Years a New Guy in Town," a slave movie "from the revisionary mind of Ben Carson." Watch the video above.
