PHONE MESSAGE FROM CITGO PRODUCTION PIPELINE PHONE NUMBER UTTERS RACIST COMMENTS AGAINST HISPANICS: Ironically, the Venezuelan petroleum organization is a Hispanic owned company
During the work week of April 9-13, The New Majority (TNM) contacted Citgo seeking advertisement support for the monthly newspaper. A message was left on a telephone recorder at (281) 458-3936. The person on the recorder identified himself as Rickey Sittig, an employee at Citgo.

On Tuesday, April 17 at 4:26 pm, the following message was left on the TNM answering machine from the same Citgo number TNM called the previous week. The male caller did not identify himself:

"Yeah you know what, I am totally against illegal aliens who are majority of them Hispanic. And as far as setting up a(n) advertisement at this company Citgo, absolutely not. And what about White Americans? Do you have White Americans read your paper? Thank you very much and don't call back."

What followed were a series of phone calls to Citgo beginning with Citgo Public Relations Manager Fernando Garay. Mr. Garay told TNM that Citgo would conduct an investigation of the matter on Wednesday, April 18, a day after the comments were left.

The following week, Mr. Garay initiated a three way phone call between TNM Publisher Paul Bennett and Yvonne Holmes, a Citgo Human Resource manager. Ms. Holmes asked Mr. Bennett if the person who left the message from Citgo identified himself. Mr. Bennett told her no, but suggested that a voice expert could compare the voices of the man who left the message on the TNM telephone recorder with the telephone greeting recorder of Mr. Sittig, the Citgo employee whom Mr. Bennett left his initial message with. Ms. Holmes informed Mr. Bennett that her office would conduct an investigation.

The days following Mr. Bennett's conversation with Ms. Holmes included phone calls to Citgo's American corporate office in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Mr. Bennett left two messages for Felix Rodriguez, president of Citgo's American operations. On the second call, Mr. Bennett spoke to Mr. Rodriguez's secretary. Mr. Bennett played the message to the secretary. She suggested Mr. Bennett contact Citgo's public relations office.

TNM also sent two e-mails to the Venezuelan Consulate office. Citgo is a Venezuelan based company. A representative from the consulate office contacted TNM by telephone. The voice recording from the Citgo phone number was played for the representative. The representative said the consulate would contact TNM. No one from the consulate office has contacted TNM.

Mr. Bennett spoke to Citgo H.R. representative, Ms. Holmes, Friday, May 25. Ms. Holmes said Citgo is still investigating the incident. "...< Previous | Next >

From Publisher

The New Majority is not a politically correct publication.The New Majority seeks to have open and honest dialogue. No issue will be subjugated to the outer realm of political and social discussion for fear of offending someone. TNM will expand on those things which all New Majority persons have in common and bring to light those things which brings us at odds with one another.
Paul Fitzgerald Bennett

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