High life
Corporate cowards
Taki
New York I learned my lesson 26 years ago. Having spent the night gambling with him, I asked Henry Ford, the then numero uno of the United States, for his Ford Motor Compa- ny to throw National Review a crumb or two in the way of advertising. 'Couldn't pos- sibly,' said the 'deuce' in his best English accent. 'They're far too conservative.'
NR back then was my employer and I thought I'd give it a try. No dice. Large cor- porations were the ones Lenin had in mind when he predicted that they would sell the rope the reds would hang us with. Although Lenin got it wrong, it wasn't because large American corporations did any of the fighting against the bad guys. Ironically, it was Ronald Reagan, whose bible was National Review, who finally put the evil ones to the sword. I always believed that if it was up to corporate types, they probably would have sold star wars to the Russkies for a price.
I write all this because Texaco, the oil behemoth, has once again testified to cor- porate America's moral cowardice. During the Cold War corporate giants lived in fear of taking a pounding in the court of public opinion by any wild-eyed radical group that needed some publicity. Now they live in utter terror of the PC and race discrimina- tion hustlers that have taken over from the radical bums. Let's take it from the top.
Earlier this month, a group of Texaco's black employees, suing the company for racial discrimination because they had not been promoted — having got their jobs through affirmative action in the first place, it was hardly surprising promotion was not on — released transcripts of a secretly recorded meeting of top Texaco executives. Race hustlers like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton were on the case quicker than you can say Ku-Klux-Klan. The lefty media reported that words such as luckin' nig- gers' had been used by the execs. Two were immediately suspended and two retirees had their pensions and health benefits cut off. The stock plummeted as the media smelled blood and went to work.
Then a funny thing happened on the way to the execution. An independent counsel brought in forensic experts who digitally copied the poor quality tapes, slowed them down and electronically restored them. Bingo! Not only was the 'n' word not used, it was a reference to St Nicholas that the blackmailing race hustlers had passed off to a delighted media.
Now, instead of restoring the fired exec- utives and apologising to the retirees who had lost their pensions, here is what Texaco and its chairman — I don't wish to sully further Pierre Laval's reputation by calling Peter Bijur his corporate equivalent — did. They ponied up 175 million big ones to set- tle the race discrimination suit. $100,000 per plaintiff. Sixty-five million was put aside for 'diversity, sensitivity and mentor- ing' programmes. Although total employ- ment in Texaco has dropped by nearly 30 per cent over the past five years, the num- ber of blacks, women and other minorities has increased. Peter Bijur, however, got down on his knees in front of Jesse Jackson and begged forgiveness of a charge that was a total phoney in the first place. What in heaven's name is going on here?
I'll tell you. It could come in handy in Britain one day. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharp- ton and hustlers of their ilk learned long ago that the mere charge of racisim is enough to make corporate cowards throw the towel in. Corporate types only look for- ward to an early retirement. The money they give away to the race gangsters is not theirs in the first place. Instead of telling the hoods to go and do something anatomi- cally impossible, they open their cheeks wide and beg forgiveness. What Al Capone did illegally to small shopkeepers two gen- erations ago, the race gangsters are doing to large corporations legally in the Nineties.
And it gets better. John Deutch, the CIA chief, flies to Los Angeles to tell 'con- cerned' residents that the agency did not introduce crack cocaine to the black com- munity as alleged by a black newspaper. He is booed, sworn at, abused and leaves the stage by thanking them. No wonder the black community is in the sorry state it's in. It has been infantilised by liberals, and peo- ple like Deutch and Bijur, who should know better, have poured oil on the race fire by bending over and apologising.
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