Gerth: Someone should remind Daniel Cameron what his life would have been like in 1792

It’s good to see former Attorney General Daniel Cameron has landed on his feet.

Just two days after his replacement as Kentucky Attorney General was sworn in, Cameron was introduced as the new CEO of a group called the 1792 Exchange.

If you’ve never heard of the 1792 Exchange, you’re not alone.

A ripple of “What in tarnation is that?” spread through Kentucky late Wednesday morning after news went out that Cameron would take the helm of the group.

Political reporters across the state sprinted to their Google machines.

Turns out the 1792 Exchange is an organization that doesn't want corporations to take positions on "woke" issues. It doesn't want them to end business relationships with people who act like racist and homophobic jerks, or place a premium on doing business with companies that don’t harm the environment.

It wants them all to stay neutral on controversial social and environmental issues.

The idea is that the only thing corporations should care about is profits, profits and more profits.

According to its website, the group’s goal is to “steer public companies in the United States back to neutral on ideological issues so they can best serve their shareholders and customers with excellence and integrity.”

The groups’ website talks about woke-this and woke-that, blah, blah, blah.

The 1792 Exchange takes its name from the first stock exchange in the United States, back in the good old days when corporations didn’t worry about things like gay and transgender rights and the environment.

Back in the good old days when corporations didn’t care about things like hiring Black people.

They just bought them.

That brings us to Cameron, who spent his entire run for governor attacking “woke people” and “woke corporations” and doing everything he could to stick a shiv in the back of anyone who was trying to reverse injustices of the past.

Those injustices would have affected him, more than most.

He was trying to take us back to 1792 then. He’s trying to take us back to 1792 now in his new role.

I wonder if Cameron even realizes how much worse it would have been for him back in 1792.

According to the 1790 census, there is about a 92% chance that Cameron would have been a slave in the United States and not the head honcho of some political organization trying to make sure businesses felt free to trample on the rights of people like him.

In 1792, if he lived in the South, he’d likely spend his days harvesting cotton or sugar cane in the oppressive heat of Georgia or Louisiana for no pay – just the chance to have a roof over his head and the gruel his master would allow him to eat.

In 1792, Cameron likely wouldn’t have learned to read or write, let alone attend law school like he did.

In 1792, if he were to have gone to work for a U.S. senator like Cameron did, he wouldn’t have been the senator’s legal counsel. He likely would have worked in the senator’s home prepping the senator’s clothes, serving him coffee, milking the cows, or doing whatever the senator demanded of him.

That doesn't even take into account what being alive in 1792 would have meant for his personal life.

But if Cameron hasn’t figured out that he’s fighting against the very principles that have allowed him to succeed in life by now, it’s doubtful he ever will. That’s too bad because his constant attacks on “wokeness” will help ensure that some young Black men in the future won’t have the same chances that he had.

While we’ll never return to 1792 when 92% of Black people were born into slavery, Cameron is working to make sure businesses don’t adopt “woke ideologies” that have given African Americans an opportunity to succeed and could open more doors for them in the future.

That said, I’m still confused by the 1792 Exchange and what it stands for.

Does it really want corporations to remain neutral on issues like gay and transgender rights, or is it OK with a bakery in Colorado refusing to make a wedding cake for a gay couple? Does it really believe Dan Cathy, the chairman of Chick-fil-a, should keep his mouth shut about gay marriage?

Does it want BP to remain neutral on the issue of fossil fuels, or does it just want a company that supports solar and wind power to keep its corporate trap shut?

My guess is that the 1792 Exchange really believes businesses should be neutral only when they support liberal causes like social, economic and environmental justice.

Cameron's history of working for McConnell and the fact that the Citizens United Political Victory Fund has endorsed him should at the very least hint that Cameron isn't opposed to allowing corporate money into politics.

But the last thing he wants is a do-gooder corporation telling us what we should think if it goes against his warped sense of what his 1792 world would look like.

And that's a world where it's OK to discriminate against the LGBTQ community, to support policies that will turn our world into a Saharan nightmare, and to ignore the need for diversity that can not only give African Americans a better chance to succeed but also help the companies compete.

Joseph Gerth can be reached at 502-582-4702 or by email at jgerth@courierjournal.com.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Let's remind Daniel Cameron what his life would have been like in 1792