Race faux pas:

New HUD Secretary Ben Carson compares slaves to early immigrants.

WASHINGTON — Ben Carson compared slaves to immigrants seeking a better life in his first official address Monday as Housing and Urban Development Secretary, setting off an uproar on social media.

In what appears to be an embarrassing pattern of missteps on race for the Trump administration, Carson told a room packed with hundreds of federal workers that the Africans captured, sold and transported to America against will had the same hopes and dreams as early immigrants.

“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,” said Carson, speaking extemporaneously as he paced the room with a microphone. “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.”

A senior HUD official who spoke on condition of anonymity said no one in the room interpreted Carson’s comments as anything but a “heartfelt introduction to the HUD family.”

“He was making a point about people who came to this country for a better life for their kids,” the official said. “Only the most cynical interpretation would conflate voluntary immigration to this country with involuntary servitude.”

But the reaction on social media was untheir forgiving.

Last week, U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos hailed historically black colleges and universities as “pioneers” of “school choice” after meeting with a group of college presidents. She made no mention of the fact that the schools were forged at the height of racial segregation because black Americans were barred by laws in many states from attending white institutions.