It was blight on Europe for centuries as the Muslim states of Africa regularly raided towns and took slaves.

You forgot to mention the European slaves taken by other Europeans. E.g. Viking thralls, Rus and Khazar slave trading, etc. They outnumbered the ones taken by Muslims by a factor of 5 or 10.

But you'll never hear about that one

Speak for yourself.

There are considerable differences between the slave trade in Europeans by the Ottomans and North Africans, and the slave trading of the Africans by Europeans. Two important differences:

First, the volume of slave trading in Europe was big, but the volume of slave trading in Africa was even bigger, so big that it completely corrupted the entire continent. African kingdoms converted to full time warfare in order to steal enough slaves to meet European and Arab demand. Nothing even close to that occurred in Europe.

Essentially, Muslim slave raids on Europe was, in the Big Picture, a minor annoyance to Europe. As cruel as it was to individuals, it was not an existential threat and certainly didn't retard Europe's development into the modern industrial world. But the slave trade in Africa changed the whole direction of African civilisation. In the Middle Ages, African kingdoms were every bit as advanced and modern as their European counterparts. When Portuguese traders arrived in the capital of Benin in the 15^th century, they found a city every bit as big and advanced as Lisbon. But over the next few centuries, African nations moved into a constant war and plunder economy to provide the slaves taken by Europe and the Americas.

It was a very bad deal. It allowed Europe and the USA to industrialise, on the backs of slaves, while Africa not just stagnated but went backwards, finally becoming easy pickings by the 19^th century and the Scramble For Africa.

Secondly, European slaves owned by Muslims sometimes (not always) had opportunity to become rich, powerful and even reclaim their freedom. African slaves in the USA never had that opportunity, especially not in the 19^th century when the slave states passed laws prohibiting owners from freeing slaves, or teaching them to read and write.

The Barbary corsair raids on western Europe were, of course, terrible for the people involved. But under Muslim rule, some European slaves went on to have money and power, for instance Helen Gloag became empress of Morocco, and the Janissary slave-soldiers were honoured, paid very well, and had money, influence and power. At some points in Ottoman history the Janissary slaves were effectively king-makers, they could appoint or overthrow Sultans. Under the Ottoman system, slaves had great personal power. The slave Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, a stolen Bosnian Serb, became Grand Vizier and effectively the most powerful man in the empire.

Nothing like this was possible in the American slavery system.

African slaves under the American chattel slave system were never paid for their work. They had no money or personal possessions beyond whatever trinkets their masters might give them, and even then they had no legal right of ownership. No slave became rich, powerful or influential under the American chattel slavery system. While house slaves might have some limited power within their master's household, they had no power over whites and certainly no political power. Can you imagine a Negro slave of 1830 appointing the President of the United Slaves? Sally Hemings might have borne Thomas Jefferson's children, but neither she nor the children were given any official standing or acknowledgement.

There was no black slave in America who became First Lady, or who came even close to the wealth and power of Sokollu Mehmed Pasha.