Word: texaco
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Recently, the Texaco corporation settled a high-profile racial discrimination lawsuit for a staggering $176 million. Accounts of discrimination and harassment at Texaco were widely reported in the media, and a damning tape of top executives sneering at black employees and conspiring to destroy employment records was released to the press. One could interpret this story as evidence that pervasive racism still plagues corporate American, and that herculean efforts are sometimes necessary to shatter the glass ceiling...
However, John Leo, the conservative columnist who writes for U.S. News and World Report, finds a far different meaning in the Texaco case. Leo seems to enjoy railing against political correctness, multiculturalism and affirmative action. His Feb. 10 column, "Jelly Bean: The Sequel," laments the outcome of the Texaco suit...
...first attempts to mitigate the gravity of the charges raised against Texaco. He does not mention the Justice Department investigation which discovered evidence of racial discrimination in promotions. Texaco employees were frequently passed over for promotions simply because of their skin color. Black employees throughout the corporation were also allegedly subjected to harassment and intimidation, ranging from insulting slurs to having their tires slashed...
...instead focuses almost exclusively on the secretly recorded tape. The Texaco executives were first reported in The New York Times as referring to blacks as "niggers" and "black jelly beans." He claims that the reference to "niggers" was later discovered to be a garbled pronunciation of "St. Nicholas," and the language about jelly beans was taken from a diversity seminar. Hence, Leo surmises, Texaco's image had been unfairly tarnished by a sensationalist media. He adds, "it's hard to shed tears for Texaco," but then proceeds to drum up more pity for the corporation, excusing another racist remark...
Richard Jewell was not the Atlanta bomber. The cause of the explosion of TWA Flight 800 was not determined. A senior executive at Texaco was found not to have referred to African-American employees as "niggers," as had been reported. The burning of black churches in the South was found not to have been the work of organized bigots, as had been reported. The arrest of a militia group in Montana did not end in a shoot...