Yes! We are, because we are exposing the establishment which would have kept us in "comfortable slavery" indefinitely: The New World Order that George H.W. Bush announced on 9/11/1990.
There are other yesses..
YES, we are paying a price to expose that establishment.
Ask blacks if they were better off after 1865. They broke out of one type of slavery, but a new one began. As a result of their new level of freedom (and notice that I said "new level" and I did not imply that they were entirely free) had to fend for themselves. No more slave dorms and free greens 'n' grits. In the new economy there were new challenges and it wasn't just blacks being used for profit. If someone had asked blacks the same question back then as in the OP, what would they have said??
"Are you better off now?"
The New World Order aims to make slaves out of all people. A consumer herd. That's it. Semicolon. (But there are still hierarchies within that herd that are pitted against each other by the ruling classes and their social engineers, in order to control the working class and their voting sentiment.)
We all need to be united knowing that while there still may be inequalities among the classes and races, the top 1% ruling class aims to enslave us all, regardless of any of the petty differences of the past, race or otherwise. And one way they do that is by trying to preserve slavery while appearing to oppose it. And that's the Democratic Party for you. They want to maintain the hatred between blacks and whites and all participants in slavery dependent economies, so that they can always have a way to divide people. That way they always have several places to attach strings the masses as a collective puppet. There. I said it. We all collectively make up the Big Dummy. Yet we are all being pitted against each other based on old battles. All of us need to unites against the globalists. Blackbirders and slaveowners were the original globalists. All of our presidents going back to George H.W. on 9/11/1990 with his New World Order bullshit supported that crap. They were all bosom buddies behind the scenes and spread of all the rivalry that they portrayed during the election years. They are the real modern slaveowners (and newsflash: you don't have to be not white to be a victim). In 2016 we elected someone who called it all out. And that is why the shit is now hitting the fan. It doesn't matter if he's a "convicted felon" or not. If you oppose them, you're a felon no matter what. So wear it proudly, I say. Just oppose them. They are trying to recreate the pyramidic structure of servitude and slavery that was the backbone of Egyptian civilization with the Pharaohs and all the levels of servitude right on down to the lowest level. That is why many of these modern secret societies still hold on to that symbolism. Because they know that is really what they want.. it is their religion, regardless of what they say or were they going on Sundays or Saturdays or wherever or whenever.