We Are Not a “Nation of Immigrants.” Related: Slaves Were Not Immigrants.
Oh, friends.
So, I had a post about structural racism allll ready to go, but then Dr. Ben “Gifted Hands Don’t Make You a Gifted Historian” Carson brought everything to a screeching halt. And since one of white people’s biggest missteps around race is Repeating Things A Single Person Of Color Says That Seem To Exonerate Us Or Just Make Us Feel Better, Even When Those Things Are Patently Untrue, we need to nip this one in the bud.
Yesterday, in his first address as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Dr. Carson followed some inspirational comments about the American can-do spirit with this:
And go to Ellis Island one of these days if you haven’t been there and go through that museum on Ellis Island. And look at the pictures of all those people who are hanging up there. From every part of the world, many of them carrying all their earthly belongings in their two hands, not knowing what this country held for them. Look at the determination in their eyes.
That’s what America is about. 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. 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. (emphasis mine)
What.
WHAT
W H A T ?!
This is some serious let’s-revise-history-by-gaslight. I’ll keep this brief and then pass the mic to Luvvie Ajayi for her response. This kind of statement matters a great deal, and here are some of the reasons.
Immigration (migration) implies intent, and at the very least consent. Slavery was not that.
“Worked even longer, even harder for less?" No. That's me grumbling about paying a babysitter $12 an hour because when I was a teenager I earned $5, and I did all the dishes, not like these layabouts. This is not that. This is, on one hand, sustained exploitation of immigrant labor and, on the other hand, horrific chattel slavery. When we use flippant or irrelevant or slogan-y language like this, we disguise evil as mere circumstance. How we talk about our history matters.
Who knows what slaves were “dreaming,” but imagine yourself kidnapped and transported in a box across the ocean to, let’s say, Siberia, where you’re forced to work sixteen-hour days or be flayed. What are you wishing for, if you catch a second to daydream? That cute condo your granddaughter will buy someday in Novosibirsk? Your great-grandson's all-Siberian snowblowing business? No.
"Nation of immigrants," forsooth. Well, as E's first-grade teachers say: MISTAKES ARE PROOF THAT YOU'RE TRYING. Source
Another note: I was recently called out for using the phrase "nation of immigrants" to describe our country. It felt inclusive and respectful—until I got educated, so I'm passing it on, because we need to help each other out. There are two major MAJOR groups of people who simply did not descend from immigrants: Native Americans (duh), and most African Americans (also duh). Calling our country a “nation of immigrants” (or refashioning slaves as “immigrants”) erases those people from the story; hides the violence they suffered at the hands of white captors; and sustains our vision of the US as a scrappy, lovingly dysfunctional family of dreamers who sailed here, heads high and hands on hips, to “pursue prosperity and happiness in this land.” In reality, our story is a lot more complicated.
All right, over to the wonderful Luvvie Ajayi, who does not have time for Dr. Carson's nonsense. Be warned: if profanity and irreverence are not your thing, sit this one out.
Other resources:
Dr. Carson sort-of-but-not-really backtracked his statement later on Facebook.