Chiquita's slip is showing.

• Author: Gearino, G.D.
• Position: FINEPRINT

Just when I think I've got the tidal charts of business boycotts figured out, I find myself on the wrong side of some issue. For instance, I know I'm not supposed to buy Quilted Northern toilet paper, even if my tender parts beg for its soothing touch, because that brand is manufactured by Georgia-Pacific LLC which is owned by Koch Industries Inc. And as everyone knows, CEO Charles Koch supports the tea party and thus is first cousin to Satan himself. So if 1 let so as a single roll of Quilted Northern into my house, I'm essentially declaring that it's OK with me if poor children starve, all governments are dismantled, the gay/lesbian/transgender community is oppressed and blue-collar families are evicted from their homes for being 15 minutes late on a mortgage payment. But if I use Charmin, my conscience is clear.

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I'm not the only one having trouble navigating these boycott tides. North Carolina's newest corporate resident-to-be, Chiquita Brands International Inc., recently found itself in the odd situation of simultaneously being a boycotter and boycottee. Grab a pencil and paper, because this is so convoluted that you might need to diagram it like one of William Faulkner's page-long sentences.

As you may recall, Chiquita announced in November that it had accepted various bribes totaling $22 million to move its headquarters from Cincinnati to Charlotte. (Technically, state and city officials refer to the payments as "incentives," but let's call them what they are.) Coincidentally just days prior to that announcement, Chiquita had written a letter to a West Coast activist group called ForestEthics declaring that the fruit company was committed to eliminating the use of any fuel refined from Canadian tar sands. The process of getting oil from that source is the newest flash point for environmentalists, and Chiquita clearly hoped to get in front of this issue.

To understand the company's sensitivity to such social matters, it helps to know a little of its history. Until 1970, it was known as United Fruit Co., and it had a well-earned reputation for meddling, to say the least, in the affairs of Central American countries--so much so that the term "banana republic" was used to describe those in the grip of United Fruit. (That phrase was coined by O. Henry--the pen name of Greensboro native William Sydney Porter--by the way. If you ever get on Jeopardy, pray that it comes up. You're welcome.) The company was so dominant a...