The Americans that were enslaved during the history of this country were forced in chains over to this country in a terrible journey during which many of them died, stripped naked, paraded in front of potential buyers, examined like animals. When they were bought, they were OWNED and they couldn't make any decisions about their own life and future. They didn't even HAVE any income to tax. They broke their backs in labor so that other people could do well. They were whipped, raped, beaten, had pieces of their bodies cut off, bred like animals, broken up from their families, sold onto unfamiliar farms. If they ran away, they were captured and punished. And they had no hope or promise of anything different happening until the mid-1800s.

No American today has to face even a fraction of that kind of generational terror and despair. It's simply not a legitimate comparison at all.