Excuse me... wrong!!!!!! Not about money my rosy red ass! Then how come their not suing the black MF's that sold them into slavery in the first place? 'cause they don't have any money left... Johny Cochroach one of the finest legal minds in America? AAAAAAAAAARRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lawsuit Chases Companies Tied to Slavery

WASHINGTON — Eight major corporations are expected to be named Tuesday in an unprecedented lawsuit that seeks payback for the companies' historical ties to the slave trade over 137 years ago.

New York slave reparations activist Deadria Farmer-Paellmann is seeking unspecified damages in a suit that names Aetna Inc., CSX Corp. and FleetBoston Financial Corp., among others, as unjustly profiting from the slave trade before the Civil War ended in 1865.

"We targeted these industries because the plaintiff can show a direct linkage between the plaintiff and her descendants," said attorney Ed Fagen of Fagen and Associates, one of the firms working for Farmer-Paellmann. Farmer-Paellmann would not take any questions, referring all calls to another firm, Thomas, Wareham & Richards.

"I don't think that it will prevail," said Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano. "It's inconceivable that someone alive or enjoying this wealth today had anything to do with it 150 years ago."

Fagen said three complaints will be filed Tuesday in New York and New Jersey implicating eight companies. Among the three already named, Hartford-based Aetna, at the prompting of Farmer-Paellmann, has admitted that it insured slaves for slave owners.

Two years ago, the company, which has given over $36 million to the black community and hosts an annual symposium on race at its corporate offices, apologized.

"Aetna has long acknowledged that for several years shortly after its founding in 1853, that the company may have insured the lives of slaves," the firm said in March 2000. "We express our deep regret over any participation at all in this deplorable practice."

On Monday, Aetna responded to the news of the pending lawsuit. "We do not believe a court would permit a lawsuit over events which — however regrettable — occurred hundreds of years ago," a statement released by the company said. "These issues in no way reflect Aetna today."

CSX also issued a statement late Monday.

"The claimants named CSX because slave labor was used to construct portions of some U.S. rail lines under the political and legal system in place more than a century before CSX was formed in 1980. The lawsuit to be filed in federal court in New York City against CSX and other corporations demanding financial reparations is wholly without merit and should be dismissed," it said.

A spokeswoman for FleetBoston said the company would not comment until it has seen the lawsuit.

Though Farmer-Paellmann's suit is the first of its kind, it's unlikely to be the last. According to reports, a Washington-based group that includes O.J. Simpson attorney Johnnie Cochran, Harvard University professor Cornel West, and Columbia scholar Manning Marable, has already developed a list of targeted corporations.

Those include New York Life, AIG, J.P. Morgan Chase Manhattan Bank, as well as Aetna and FleetBoston.

Media publishers who once printed ads for slave owners have also been fingered by reparations advocates, as have major colleges and universities — including Harvard and Yale — whose many early benefactors were documented slave owners.

"It’s safe to assume that these are the first steps and ongoing research as we speak is being done on a variety of institutions, public and private," said Marable, who said blacks continue to suffer in the private sector by experiencing higher insurance and mortgage rates from companies whose equity was raised on the backs of slaves.

"To me it’s not fundamentally about the money, it is about the truth of history and bringing the truth to light, which will promote a frank and honest discussion across the racial divide," he said.

Critics say the companies being targeted look nothing like they did almost a century and a half ago and that shareholders today weren’t even alive when the slave trade took place so they shouldn’t be held responsible for past evils.

"The real problem is they are publicly traded companies, and they cannot afford the publicity. It’s a form of shakedown, extortion. The companies today are completely different from the companies they are talking about in the past; the people who will get the money are people who aren’t slaves," said scholar David Horowitz, who recently released Uncivil Wars: The Controversy over Reparations for Slavery.

But Joyce A. Ladner, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institute and author of The New Urban Leaders, said even if they don't succeed, the suit will have made its point.

"This case does two things, it educates the larger public about the role that institutions played in slavery," she said, and it "redresses old grievances" by tying specific harm to companies and the government.

"These lawyers — and they are some of the finest legal minds in America — know that this is basically a frivolous lawsuit that will not succeed, but to the extent that they can stir the pot and get us to talk about this and maybe create this fund for scholarships and maybe get an apology from Congress, they will have accomplished their purpose," Napolitano said.

-- Anonymous, March 26, 2002

Answers

I hate to say this, but we need a war and a recession in order to get a lot of these jugheads focusing on what's really important.

-- Anonymous, March 26, 2002

Where is jesse jerkson? Er, I mean Jackson.

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2002

Meemur,

I am sad to say that I think you are going to get your wish (if you would call it a wish).

War sometimes has good benefits. Economies sometimes boom during war- time. Other benefits include making us all aware of what is really important. Some of the trash just filters down to the bottom as those items were never really important to begin with. The downside is of course loss of life.

If the blacks are going to sue, what about the poor white share- croppers? When will it end?

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2002

And as usual the indians, the original landowners who were displaced and slaughtered will be forgotten.

I think these people need to stop and really look at the order of things. If anything, the native Americans should get reparations first.

As has been said many many times, the descendants of the slaves are more than welcome to go back where their ancestors came from. That isn't what they really want, though. They just want something for nothing, claiming it was earned thru the sweat and suffering of their long dead ancestors.

Perhaps we could consider the ones that were tossed over the side of the ships to drown first?

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2002

Um, well, the Brits could start with the Vikings, I suppose, then the Romans, then the Vikings again and the Saxons. Of course, there's the French in 1066 as well. I guess we could go after the Japanese in WWII, who used quite a few Brits for slave labor. There may be other exploiters but these will do for starters.

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2002

Hmmm, maybe for starters we good go after Eve. If she hadn't partaken of the fruit of knowledge none of this would have happened.

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2002

IMHO this has more to do with the bottom feeders that they call lawyers rather than blacks.

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2002

In Carl Sandberg's immortal words (as best I can remember) "Why does the hearse-horse snicker, when he hauls a lawyer away."

Of course there are some fine people who are lawyers, like one of my nephews.

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2002

Actually, if any living person can prove that they were a slave back then, I say that the person should be allowed to sue. If the others can't prove that they were slaves, they have no case. JMHO

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2002

Yeah, Apoc. Cool idea. Didn't the oldest living woman, a French lady, die at 119 last year or something? And the oldest man now is 117? I don't remember.

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2002