Wachovia, slaves, race hustlers, & running with one's tail between one's legs

Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe on Wachovia Corp. running for the hills:

The 13th Amendment abolished slavery in 1865, and Wachovia wasn't founded until 1879. The slaves for which (Wachovia Chairman Ken) Thompson was so apologetic were owned decades before the Civil War, when slavery was still lawful throughout the South. They were owned not by Wachovia but by the Bank of Charleston and the Georgia Railroad and Banking Co. -- two of the approximately 400 financial institutions dating back to 1781 that over the centuries merged with or were acquired by other institutions that eventually became part of the conglomerate known today as Wachovia.

In other words, Thompson's apology was for something Wachovia didn't do, in an era when it didn't exist, under laws it didn't break. And as an act of contrition for this wrong it never committed, it can now expect to pay millions of dollars to activists for a wrong they never suffered.

What is going on here?

Underlying Wachovia's conduct is a Chicago ordinance passed in 2002, which requires every company doing business with the city to investigate and disclose any historical ties it may have had to slavery.

I think Jacoby got it right when he titled this column The slavery shakedown.

One of the better things about America has been our general lack of interest in history. That was a good thing: people came here to get over the past injustices of their native lands. Witness the relative peace between American Jews and American Arabs vs that of Jews and Arabs still in the Middle East. Fourth generation Turks and Armenians get along well enuf here, and third generation Americans of Cuban ancestry don't care all that much about the injustices Castro perpetrated against their families 40 years ago. Those are all good things.

However, there are professionals who make a living dredging up past injustices here in order to make a living, stoking feelings of personal injustice in ppl who didn't suffer that injustice. Wachovia is helping, and so are some big city mayors like Chicago's Richard Daley. Shame on them.