{"id":2012,"date":"2002-03-26T18:17:16","date_gmt":"2002-03-26T23:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=2012"},"modified":"2002-03-26T18:17:16","modified_gmt":"2002-03-26T23:17:16","slug":"unsuitable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/03\/26\/unsuitable.html","title":{"rendered":"Unsuitable"},"content":{"rendered":"

A class action suit has been filed in Boston against three large corporations for their connection to slavery <\/a>in the 19th Century and earlier. The suit reads, in part, “The practice of slavery constituted an ‘immoral and inhumane deprivation of Africans’ life, liberty, African citizenship rights, cultural heritage’ and it further deprived them of the fruits of their own labor.” The three companies, the suit claims, profited from slavery, and are therefore liable for compensation and damages.<\/p>\n

FleetBank (which, until recently, held our mortage) is named in the suit. It’s predecessor, Providance Bank of Rhode Is., was founded by (and loaned substantial sums to) one John Brown, who owned, among other things, some slave ships.<\/p>\n

Aetna insurance has a predecessor that issued life insurance to slave owners against the loss of their slaves (with a rider that denied coverage in case of lynching, suicide, or death by overwork).<\/p>\n

CSX is a successor of a number of smaller railroad companies what were built by, or operated with, slave labor.<\/p>\n

Slavery was bad. It was evil. Certainly by modern lights in our society it would be inexcusable. <\/p>\n

But can these three companies — or the dozen others yet to be named, according to the plaintiffs — be held responsible for what was done almost 150 years ago, generations ago by both human and corporate standards? Or 200? Or up to almost 400 years ago?<\/p>\n

Could I be sued for the crimes of my great, great grandfather? Or his father? Or his? And should I be?<\/p>\n

And while I would say the vast majority of Americans today would condemn the African slave trade, at the time it was not only legally permitted, but subject to quite a bit of societal, moral, and ethical debate. While it is an over-simplification to say that the US was actually torn into civil war over it, the slave question was certainly part of that conflict. <\/p>\n

So if these companies did something that was legal, that was considered moral and socially acceptible by many (even most) at the time (particularly depending on when in the two-hundred-plus year history of slavery in North America one considers), why should they now be legally compelled to face “jury trial, the appointment of an independent historic commission, restitution of the descendants’ slave labor, disgorgement of illicit profits and compensatory and punitive damages to be determined at trial”?<\/p>\n

Now, if these companies choose to do something (and Aetna has evidently considered doing so) on their own, whether for publicity or out of some sense of corporate shame, that is certainly their prerogative, and we might even applaud it. But it doesn’t seem to me to be an ethical standard, let alone a legal one, that any corporation should have to be held to.<\/p>\n

Times change. People, and laws, and moral change. It’s one thing to look at companies directly linked to the Holocaust and demand reparations (though even there you can argue the justice of it) for those who suffered and for their children. <\/p>\n

But to turn the clock back as far as this suit does … well, then you can only ask who next? I’ll bet I have folks in my Spanish parentage who faced discrimination in hiring or accomodation. Or my Irish heritage. Or my Italian heritage. Whom can I sue for that injustice? <\/p>\n

Or, conversely, should I be responsible, were I a shareholder in CSX, Fleet, or Aetna (and, for all I know, I am, via a mutual fund) for something which I didn’t do?<\/p>\n

The argument is made, of course, that the impact of slavery on the descendents of those African slaves was so much greater than any individual injustice, and so much more pernicious and pervasive in its long-lasting effects that it warrents reaching back that far. <\/p>\n

But it’s not a matter of the actions of individual companies (let alone individual slave traders, -holders, or folks who built the ships or forged the manicles). If there is to be guilt and shame and restitution assigned, it needs to be taken on by our society as a whole. To the extent that slave labor helped build this country during its first eighty years (and for the centuries before it was a country), there is nobody in the US today who has not benefited or profited from it in some fashion. <\/i><\/p>\n

If someone has to pay, it’s all of us — including, paradoxically, descendents of slaves themselves. Let’s not pretend otherwise by trying to assign blame to some identifiable companies that (a) were involved, as so many other companies and individuals at the time were, and (b) are big, deep-pocket targets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A class action suit has been filed in Boston against three large corporations for their connection to slavery in the 19th Century and earlier. 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