Is This What Wachovia Should Worry About? Good on you for pointing this out, Flyer. I agree with you that it's "back door" reparations, and that various, um, civil rights leaders who get antsy about the fact that the U.S. at one time allowed slavery can't seem to bring themselves to admit that the African slave trade existed long before we tapped into it, or to denounce African countries who still practice slavery. (Also, the UN doesn't seemed to have noticed it, either.)

Most importantly, though, let's recall that everyone who ever bought slaves, sold them, or accepted them as collateral (or simply did not get worked up that there were slaves, for that matter) has already been worm food for a couple generations. I think that says something about how silly this whole thing is.

After all, if the blacks are justified in holding hostage the great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren of slaveholders, who else in this fuc*ed-up world has a claim on another? I know plenty of Irish folks who'd love to hit the English up for nigh on 800 years of theft of land, eviction at gunpoint, intentional crop destruction, starvation as colonial policy, and just plain old shooting people who didn't like them. Of course, the Irish economy today is the fastest growing in Europe, while England's economy continues to linger over its lager in some mildewy old beerhouse, fondly recalling the old days when everything that wasn't nailed down was nationalized. The wheel of fortune offers the fairest of reparations.