March 25, 2002

Blaming the Blameless (aka Operation: Get Whitey)

It seems we have yet another attempt at punishing the son for the sins of the father about to make its way through the courts, wasting precious judicial time that could be better spent on today's crimes. While the practice of slavery, from our enlightened perspective here in 2002, was a tragedy of staggering proportions, the guilt for it lies with the whites and blacks of decades ago that created the institution and enabled it to flourish. What these companies did, at the time, was not a crime - and given the views at the time, it wasn't even necessarily immoral. Ms. Farmer-Paellmann's time would be better spent trying to improve the lot of today's black community rather than only looking backwards for someone to blame and punish. In fact, there are organizations out to discriminate, and, yes, even kill, blacks simply for being black - and, hint to Ms. Hyphen-Name, it isn't Aetna. Not to belittle what the slaves endured, because it isn't funny in the least - but Ms. Farmer-Paellmann, nobody likes a whiner.