Posted on 03/31/2002 3:59:06 AM PST by Captain Shady
Modern corporations and individuals arent responsible for injuries from 140 years ago
A New York woman has filed a lawsuit on behalf of "all African-American slave descendents" against three companies accused of benefiting from slavery.
This is the first of the slavery reparation lawsuits. Other attorneys and civil rights activists, including Johnnie Cochran, also are working on lawsuits. Like tobacco and gun control activists, they have not gotten what they want through the democratic process, so they are taking their cause to the courts.
Of course, this case is even more flawed than the others. Not only are there no surviving former slaves who could reasonably file a lawsuit, there are no surviving perpetrators of slavery to sue.
The truth is that slavery in this country was ended almost 140 years ago. It is a shameful part of our past, but it is a part of our collective history. It is not wise nor feasible to apportion blame and compensation more than a century later.
But reason will not deter these activists from their quest for money and power.
The lawsuit filed last week by the great-great-granddaughter of a South Carolina slave names three companies. It claims that the predecessor firms of FleetBoston Financial Corp., Aetna Inc. and the CSX Corp. knowingly benefited from slavery.
Specifically, the suit claims that FleetBoston at one time acquired a bank that had been owned by a man who also owned ships used in the slave trade. It claims that Aetnas predecessor firm insured slaves for slaveholders. And it claims that CSX acquired railroads built or run by slave labor.
You can see the direction in which this effort is heading. If corporations can be held financially responsible for what their predecessors did, surely individuals can be held responsible for what their predecessors did. And the span of six generations between the injury and the lawsuit means nothing to slavery reparation advocates.
To bolster their case, advocates of slavery reparations point to the Holocaust-related lawsuits. But the comparison is ridiculous. Actual Holocaust survivors sued the actual companies that used Nazi slave labor. A century from now, the Holocaust suits would have been just as pointless as the slavery reparation litigation.
These lawsuits are unlikely to succeed in court. But they may intimidate companies into settlement. No corporation wants to see its name constantly linked to slavery. Such settlements would be nothing more than blackmail payoffs.
The truth is that its too late to place responsibility for slavery. Its perpetrators, both corporate and individual, are dead. There is no reason to persecute and sue their descendants.
This is clearly another scam from the race hustling poverty pimps and if it goes anywhere the descendents of slaves will see no benefit; only the lawyers and scam artists (but I repeat myself) will see any money. And those minorities who are today impoverished will end up impoverished. They've been seduced into the most powerful addiction there is->handouts and the promise of more handouts while all the time ignoring the bountiful opportunities that surround them! Pity they seem so gullible!
I just had a horrid thought....Johnny Cochran & Co. going through the LDS genealogy records... (shiver)
This is revisionist history.In the 1860 census there were 76,651 White Families in Texas and 21,878 of them owned slaves. 70,994 in Louisiana and 22,033 owned slaves.
In 1850 there were 347,525 slave holders in the South (head of Households)
I am NOT supporting ANY payment, just correcting your facts.
She should turn over all her money. After all, if it were not for slavery her black-half would never have gotten to America and Halle might look like Meryl Streep.
One of my wife's colonial ancestors in New England may have "owned" some domestic help. This is, as far as I know, my family's involvement in slavery.
True. That might qualify my descendants for reparations.
Reparations are a lie, and if black people think they are entitled to them, then I as a tax payer, am entitled to reparations for all of the welfare money we've paid out to their kind, as well as how much money it's cost to incarcerate them. If we're going to ship them to Africa, We're shipping them ALL back. Criminals included.
That is really a laugh. I thought the South gave us Clinton. In fact, the first time I ever saw the man, I thought to myself, There goes a white trash, trailer park, cornpone, mayonnaise-sandwich eatin', sister-f**kin' cracker to beat any I ever saw.
My ancestors were Yankee abolitionist ministers, humane and devout, who preached against the evil slave-holding culture of the Old South. They were right and you were wrong. Anyone who defended the Old South deserved to be killed, and many were, and the South was smashed and will never rise again. Good riddance.
-ccm
And still be holding slaves I suppose... What a worthless, evil, stagnant culture you crackers worship.
-ccm
What a foolish little person you are!
I agree, but the African tribes who sold slaves probably don't have any money. On the other hand, the US Federal Gov't probably has the biggest bank account in the world....
How can you say this? You must be a student of the "might makes right" school of thought. It was an unconstitutional, illegal war that killed destroyed thousands of lives. There is no justification for these actions - Sherman himself said if the Union lost, he would be tried for war crimes.
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