June 06, 2005

Why I'm Leaving Wachovia

I bank with Wachovia. Not by choice in the beginning...a few years ago, they bought out First Union, whom I had been banking with since switching from People's...long story.

In any case, I'm leaving Wachovia. Not because I'm a bank-hopper, looking for the best interest rates on my savings account. Heck, right now my savings account is empty. No, I'm leaving Wachovia because they're the latest corporation to kiss up to the slavery reparations gang.

Before you all gang up on me and call me a horrible person who doesn't care about the evils that happened in this country during its infancy and early years, just hear me out. Slavery is bad. Bad, bad, bad. No matter who is the slaveowner and who is the slave, slavery is evil and should be stamped out. Has anyone been discussing the status of slavery that still plagues the world?

That being said, who can remember a little ol' war called the Civil War (also known as the War Between the States, or the Northern Aggression...depends on where you live)? This war was fought because of the federal government wanting to override states' rights...the right to own slaves. Southern states were willing to go their own way in order to keep that right, which was legal at the time. I'm not talking about morality here, I'm talking about legality. And, what began as an instrument to keep the United States whole became something even greater...an end to slavery in America.

I also realize that even after emancipation, life wasn't a cakewalk for blacks, and problems plague many black communities to this day. But is throwing blood money at people the answer?

Slavery in the U.S. was stamped out during the Civil War in 1863. To own another human being became illegal. Period. Legal mechanisms finally caught up with morality. So why are companies whose former incarnations might have profited off of slavery (which was legal at the time, as Two Dogs reminds us), bending over backwards to apologize for something over which current executives had no control?

I never owned slaves. No one I know ever owned slaves. No one who is alive today was a slave (at least not in the sense we are discussing in this forum). My ancestors came over after slavery was abolished, and so not even my forebears owned slaves. Why should I feel guilty? Black people who came over after slavery was abolished didn't have forebears who were slaves. Will they be due money? Whites and blacks have intermarried...who is to pay whom? Free blacks in the U.S. before the Civil War owned slaves. Will their descendants have to ante up? American Indians were known to enslave captives during times of war between tribes. Are they shouting for reparations from each other?

Who is going to decide who is responsible now for something that was abolished 142 years ago?

Unfortunately, this is not an issue about righting a past wrong. It's an issue of money and power. Liberal white guilt is running rampant in this country, and there are those who are more than ready to capitalize on it. Yes, capitalize...sorry, but even those with so-called "enlightened" motives are out for money where they can get it. (Just check out Jesse Jackson...have you ever seen him in a cheap suit?)

They say that if you forget history, you are doomed to repeat it. I'm not saying we should forget. What I am saying is that some of us are wallowing in the past at the expense of our future. Continuing to pit white against black is harmful and shameful.

And so, adios to Wachovia, the latest casualty in the reparations battle. I think I'll join my company's credit union instead.

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