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February 14, 2007
Barclays feels heat in NY
NationNews.com
By Tony Best
Bruce Ratner's naming-rights deal with Barclays Bank for a new Nets arena is getting some play outside of Brooklyn:
Few corporations have dominated their global field of operations for as long as Barclays Bank has done in places which once belonged to the then far-flung corners of the British Empire.
Think about banking in places that range from Trinidad and Tobago, Nigeria, Pakistan, Singapore, India, Jamaica, Malaysia, Pakistan, Tanzania and Barbados to the Cayman Islands, Bangladesh, South Africa, Antigua and The Bahamas, and Barclays would be the first to come to mind.
After all, people say, it was Barclays that laid the foundation for banking, opened the doors to careers in finance for black Bajans and other non-white people at a time when United States banks hardly paid any attention to them.
...
But if Bajans and others in the Commonwealth of nations have a healthy respect for the British bank, some black elected officials and other public figures in Brooklyn don't share those feelings. Indeed, some of them are so hostile with what they assert is Barclays' tainted history that they are vigorously opposing a plan to name a new 18 000 seat sports stadium in Brooklyn, Barclays Centre.And the debate has placed Barbados and Jamaica, in particular, onto centre stage, principally because of slave plantations which existed in both countries centuries ago.
Posted by lumi at February 14, 2007 9:32 AM