Spokane Rabbi Calls For Texaco Boycott Izakson Says Jews Should Be Just As Outraged As Blacks Over Corporate Racism

Spokane’s only rabbi has added his voice to the chorus of civil rights leaders supporting a nationwide boycott of Texaco products.

In his column in the monthly newsletter of Temple Beth Shalom, Rabbi Jacob Izakson urged Jewish families to boycott Texaco in the spirit and faith of Hanukkah. The 20-page newsletter, “The Voice,” circulates to several hundred Inland Northwest homes and businesses.

“If we do not stand with the aggrieved on issues such as these, why should we expect others to stand with us when we are aggrieved?” Izakson wrote.

The nationwide boycott began in mid-November after a transcript of an executive meeting at Texaco was made public in court by the plaintiffs in a 2-year-old racial discrimination suit. On the tape, Texaco officials discussing the lawsuit can be heard using racial epithets and making disparaging remarks about blacks and other minorities.

Texaco settled the lawsuit for $176.1 million shortly after the tape was revealed. But civil rights leaders, including Rainbow Coalition President Jesse Jackson and President Kweise Mfume of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, have perpetuated the boycott, hoping to force Texaco to change personnel policies that led to the lawsuit.

Texaco is expected to announce changes this week. Jackson has said if he and other civil rights leaders are not satisfied with the company’s response, they will call for divestiture of Texaco stock.

Izakson said Wednesday he was disappointed to read that the boycott is gaining momentum in the South and East but is almost non-existent in the Northwest because of the small minority population here. “Since when does that have anything to do with anything?” he asked. “All Americans should be outraged, and that includes us Jews.”

Local Texaco distributors confirmed the boycott has had little impact in this area. Bob Dompier, owner of John Dompier Oil Co. of Spokane, said he has not noticed a drop in customers at his four franchise convenience stores, nor have any of the 12 independent dealers to whom he supplies gasoline.

“Before they boycott, people should know that there are no Texaco employees here in Spokane,” Dompier said. “All the stores are owned privately.”

Larry Hitchcock, general manager of Spokane’s Thunderbird Lubrication, also a Texaco distributorship, said he thinks Northwest customers are fairly savvy about the impact of a boycott.

“Most people know that a boycott of Texaco products wouldn’t do a lot to hurt Texaco,” Hitchcock said. “It would do a lot to hurt the families who own Texaco stations.”

Izakson said there always will be unintended victims during a boycott, but he encouraged business people to be morally responsible for their products.

“They have to understand who they are representing and make a moral choice,” he said. “Texaco is a company that is not only racially biased but also bigoted.”

That is just one of the complexities that have made some other religious leaders hesitant to publicly encourage the boycott.

The Rev. Ezra Kinlow, pastor of the Holy Temple Church of God in Christ, said he decided not to discuss the boycott from the pulpit, because he worries about fueling anger among his predominantly black congregation.

“We have to be prepared for reconciliation,” he said. “There have been so many things going around - O.J., Texaco - that we become too full of anger to even deal with it all. Some white people are ready to reconcile and we are not ready to receive it.”

Still, Kinlow said that after he read about the tape recording, he found himself driving past the Texaco station between his home and his church. “They’re not going to get my money,” he said. “But I think that has to be a private decision.”

Two other black ministers, the Rev. C.W. Andrews of Calvary Baptist and the Rev. Happy Watkins of New Hope Baptist, both said they have privately encouraged people to boycott Texaco. But neither have done so from the pulpit.

All the men said they thought other measures, such as stock divestiture, would be more appropriate if it appears that Texaco is not serious about remedying the problems of unequal pay and promotions for minorities.

, DataTimes