What Was Left Out of the Edward Blakely Interview
The New Orleans Times-Picayune chose not to publish the controversial April 10th New York Times interview with Dr. Edward Blakely, the newly appointed Hurricane recovery chief for New Orleans, but instead elected to only paraphrase parts of the interview in a short piece by Frank Donze in their April 13 edition. Blakely has issued two responses to the Times article, claiming that writer Adam Nossiter quoted him out of context or completely misquoted him. The Times-Picayune’s coverage today, which is the only version of the interview that most New Orleanians will see, omits several of Blakely’s comments that displaced African Americans, 75% of whom are still locked out of the city, would find most disturbing. Among the omitted sections of the interview is Nossiter’s quote of Blakely saying that the “lower-income population” now “trapped outside the city” may not be coming back. Blakely adds that New Orleans “won’t be the same” when the dust settles and that a new population with more “energy” may replace the old. Nossiter says that Blakely suggests that the new population could be the “salvation” of New Orleans, which Blakely characterizes as “a third-world country.”
So who will this new population be that will replace poor blacks and “locals” who lack the “energy” and correct “attitudes” to rebuild the city? Nossiter quotes Blakely saying, “If we get some people here, those 100 million new Americans, they’re going to come here without the same attitudes of the locals. I think, if we create the right signals, they’re going to come here…” The phrase “100 million new Americans” was coined by demographers to refer to new Latino immigrants.
It is no secret that since Katrina white businesses and institutions in New Orleans have replaced African Americans with Latinos in virtually every occupation traditionally held by blacks before Katrina: roofing, dry walling, house painting, bricklaying, masonry, and landscaping. Many displaced African Americans have viewed this as a tactic of the what I refer to as the “exclusionist movement” — a broad movement in the white community comprised of people with disparate motives and political perspectives but united in the common goal of eliminating poverty by eliminating poor people from the city. Blakely’s comments raise questions about whether or not he is planning a recovery that allows all displaced people to return to their city who choose to or if he has been won over the to exclusionists’ strategy of repopulating the city with less expensive immigrant labor and reducing the city’s overall population. If the New York Times distorted and misrepresented Blakely’s views, he needs to make clear specifically which of the above ideas, characterizations, and strategies he disavows.
Related: Recovery Buffoon – Round of blogger responses to Ed Blakey’s comments in the New York Times.
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Two questions: 1) Why didn’t the Times-Picayune publish the whole story? 2) If Latinos are willing to come to New Orleans and work, why shouldn’t businesses hire them?
1.You will have to ask the Times-Picayune why they did not reprint the entire interview or these excerpts. They reprint NYT articles all the time.
2. Latinos are welcome to come to New Orleans and businesses are free to hire them in preference to displaced people and returned evacuees. That will cerntaily prevent the majority of working class and poor blacks from returning, which is something that many people want but I do not think right. Indeed, your employer, assuming you were employed before Katrina, had the right to fire you and import replacements who would work for lower wages. I think that would have been wrong. Some hotels recieved persmission form the INS after Katrina to import hundreds of “guest workers” from South Amerrca because the claimed they could not find any New Orleanians after Katrina who wanted to return to the city, live in a luxury hotel, and have their jobs back. I find that hard to beleive. The Times-Picayune owners could have made the same argument and imported hundreds of well-educated, English speaking journalists from around the world who would be happy to work here for half the salary. I don’t think that would have been fair. I don’t think it is right for employers to take advantage of a natural disaster and forced evacuation to lower their labor costs and make it difficult for any group to return.