Perhaps it’s time for me to find a new bank.  This kind of crap pisses me off.

Recently, JPMorgan Chase completed extensive research examining our company’s history for any links to slavery to meet a commitment to the city of Chicago. Today, we are reporting that this research found that between 1831 and 1865 two of our predecessor banks – Citizens Bank and Canal Bank in Louisiana – accepted approximately 13,000 enslaved individuals as collateral on loans and took ownership of approximately 1,250 of them when the plantation owners defaulted on the loans.

We all know slavery existed in our country, but it is quite different to see how our history and the institution of slavery were intertwined. Slavery was tragically ingrained in American society, but that is no excuse.

We apologize to the American public, and particularly to African-Americans, for the role that Citizens Bank and Canal Bank played during that period.

Although we cannot change the past, we are committed to learning from and emerging stronger because of it. Since these events took place in Louisiana, we are establishing a $5 million college scholarship program for students living in Louisiana.

Not only are they apologizing for something done by a completely different company, they’ve been guilted into coughing up $5 million in appeasement money.  If it’d been me, I’d have told them to ‘sod off’ (if I was feeling polite).

I started off with Bank One, which was assimilated into the JP Morgan Chase collective recently.  Of course, I wouldn’t doubt that Bank One would have done the same thing.

It’s tempting to ditch them over this, but it’s such a pain the ass to change banks.