A judge with sense:
CHICAGO – A federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit brought by descendants of slaves against corporations they say profited from slavery (search), saying the plaintiffs had established no clear link to the companies they targeted.
Unfortunately he didn’t dismiss with prejudice, so the case could be amended and refiled. But it’s a reasonable slap in the face for a start.
Frankly, if you wanted reparations, you should have sued for them while there were still ex-slaves left alive. Since none of the plaintiffs actually ever experienced slavery, and since none of the defendants ever had anything to do with it — at least in the lifetimes of the people who are running them — this sounds more like golddigging to me than anything else.
For the record, I don’t agree with Holocaust reparations to relatives of those who actually suffered, either (and I would qualify, since my mother’s mother’s family all went to the ovens). The doctrine of “reparation by proxy” should be repudiated by our courts forcefully and for all time.