Comments on: What Was Left Out of the Edward Blakely Interview http://thinknola.com/post/what-was-left-out-of-the-edward-blakely-interview/ A Community Notebook Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:42:53 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Lance Hill http://thinknola.com/post/what-was-left-out-of-the-edward-blakely-interview/comment-page-1/#comment-45645 Lance Hill Fri, 20 Apr 2007 17:30:37 +0000 http://thinknola.com/blog/think/2007/04/16/what-was-left-out-of-the-edward-blakely-interview/#comment-45645 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. 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.

]]> By: Chazbe http://thinknola.com/post/what-was-left-out-of-the-edward-blakely-interview/comment-page-1/#comment-45162 Chazbe Tue, 17 Apr 2007 15:03:01 +0000 http://thinknola.com/blog/think/2007/04/16/what-was-left-out-of-the-edward-blakely-interview/#comment-45162 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? 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?

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