TEXACO'S WHITE-COLLAR BIGOTS

By Jack E. White

As former Los Angeles detective Mark Fuhrman can attest, bigots of all sorts must rue the invention of tape recorders, which often provide undeniable proof of the prejudice that lurks behind the tolerant face they would like the public to see. The most recent example: the transcript of a meeting in August 1994 between senior officials of Texaco Inc. that wound up last week on the front page of the New York Times. The palaver was surreptitiously taped by one of the participants, former Texaco personnel director Richard A. Lundwall, who turned the recording over to the plaintiffs in a racial-discrimination suit after he was later fired.

According to the transcript, the executives openly discussed shredding minutes of meetings and other documents that were sought by black employees in order to bolster their charges that Texaco discriminates against minorities in promotions and fosters a racially hostile corporate environment. "This diversity thing, you know how black jelly beans agree," remarked Texaco treasurer Robert Ulrich, who is now retired. To which Lundwall replied, "That's funny. All the black jelly beans seem to be glued to the bottom of the bag." Ulrich complained about a demand from black workers for recognition of Kwanzaa, the black holiday, saying, "I'm still having trouble with Hanukkah." In one especially offensive passage, Ulrich carped that "niggers" were causing too much trouble. Tellingly, not one of the participants objected to the tone or substance of the talk. That, says psychologist Andrew Hacker, author of Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal, is typical behavior among bigots who have no fear that their outrageous conduct will ever be known to the world outside their racist cocoon. "As a bona fide member of the Caucasian club, I can tell you that people talk this way only when they feel very, very sure of their company," says Hacker. "It's clear that in those ranks at Texaco, there were no holds barred."

Texaco officials were clearly rattled by the disclosure. The reported remarks "offend me deeply," Texaco chairman Peter I. Bijur declared in a videotaped message to all employees. " This alleged behavior violates our code of conduct, our core values and the law." The company launched its own investigation of the incident, and a federal grand jury will consider possible destruction of evidence. Such revelations would be embarrassing for any corporation that, like Texaco, claims to be an equal-opportunity employer. But for the giant oil company (1995 revenues: $36.8 billion), they were especially painful because they suggest that Texaco lacks the ability to learn from its past mistakes, no matter how costly. In 1991 Texaco paid a record $17.7 million in compensatory and punitive damages to Janella Sue Martin, who sued for sex discrimination after the company denied her a long-promised promotion and gave the job to a man instead.

Beyond the specifics of the latest Texaco case, the transcript offered a rare and revealing glimpse of the bigotry and hypocrisy that still fester at the apex of the corporate world despite three decades of affirmative action. "Whenever we try to talk about racism, people say nobody has those views anymore, especially not polite, well-educated people," says Mary Frances Berry, chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. "They tell us it's just those poor-white-trash types who do these sorts of things." If the Texaco tapes are any indication, biased attitudes often go all the way to the top, and the surest way to entrench them is to pretend they no longer exist.

--By Jack E. White