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Subscribe to RSSGRAND ISLE, La. – To hear it from permanent residents of this tiny town at the southernmost edge of the bayou, the community is under siege. Not only did the massive oil spill in the Gulf force an abrupt halt to age-old routines dictated mainly by fishing, but the cleanup up effort has brought an army of workers from "outside."
"It's a drastic change for us, especially in our marinas. It's all workers," said Sheriff Euris DuBois. "The biggest change is we don't know them. They are a different nature."
Photo by Kari Huus/ msnbc.com
Grand Isle Sheriff Euris DuBois in his office on July 12.
Grand Isle has only about 1,500 permanent residents, most born here, said DuBois. They are accustomed to a large influx of families who own the cottages – or "camps" that line the beachfront. But this year, with the beaches off limits and fishing shut down, most of these perennial tourists have stayed away.
Instead there are an estimated 5,000 cleanup workers – from Texas, New Jersey, Alabama and elsewhere. The workers are all male, and the vast majority are black.
That alone is a shock here. The town has only one black permanent resident, said DuBois, and no black tourists that he can recall.
A cool reception
"And they congregate!" a waitress named Jane told diners from out of town as she described the situation, repeating rumors that there was also a rash of theft and violence. "It's bad to where our pastor on Sunday warned the congregation to lock their doors."
Some black workers report they have had a cool reception.
"I don't go out here. I am not welcome," said a worker from Houston who only gave his first name, John. Asked why he felt unwelcome, he said wryly, "uh, just a teeny bit of racism."
A co-worker chimed in: "They gouge us (on rent). They don't want us here," he said. "But we just do the work cleaning up their environment."
Compounding the tension, many companies working down in Grand Isle are renting the beach homes for their workers to stay since all the motels are jam packed. With space scarce, they pay about $100 per night per person right now.
"Some individuals are teed off because they have a group of blacks renting next door," instead of the familiar tourists, said Sheriff DuBois. "But there is no law against that."
Locals want the jobs
In addition, some of the locals are angry because outsiders are getting jobs cleaning up when they have tried and failed to get hired by BP. The beach cleanup crews are mostly under contractors from Texas here, and some of the boats hired to lay boom or help with skimming are from other parts of the Gulf coast.
"We want people from here – Thibodoux, Gretna, Grand Isle [towns in the parish] to get the jobs," said Bradley Hall who came down from Gretna to work but has failed to get a job on the cleanup.
"They don't like any of us," said a captain from New Jersey who is running a boat in the cleanup.
"It's not just blacks. It's Yankees, and everybody who is not from Grand Isle," he said, giving only his first name, Mike.
DuBois dismissed the notion that because of the influx of workers there is also a crime wave.
"Are things missing here more than before? No. No more than normal," he said. "Fighting? Yeah, we get complaints late at night – fights in bars."
But he said that would be going on anyway.
"They just took the place of the tourists," he said.
One spark for the widespread rumors was an actual incident: A few weeks back, outside Cisco's Hideaway on the other side of the island, a worker was stabbed and seriously wounded by another, who has since disappeared. The suspect has been identified and there is an active search ongoing.
Dubois went on the radio to assure people that there was no crime wave in Grand Isle – no one has been raped, he said, to counter that rumor, and the level of theft and petty crime is about normal, he said. And he noted that there are more than 200 security personnel on the 7-mile long strip, including local police, state troopers and many security people hired by BP and the oil spill contractors.
Even so, the government is moving to ease the strains. According to DuBois, the local government is planning to bring in a ship that can sleep 400 workers, in order to move some of the workers out of residential areas.
"If you have a big influx of strangers in a small town, it's natural to have a backlash," he said.
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i have always known black people were not welcomed in this local resort town,and to think i am a parish resident. when are we going to live in harmony ?
Article should be titled "Racist town and blacks mix like oil and water, though the town would rather have oil in the water".
Whenever you see outsiders coming in and taking jobs away from locals, there is going to be a backlash. When those coming in are a different race, the backlash is going to be worse. It is difficult to be gracious an welcoming to outsiders that come in and take jobs that you are applying for and need to feed your family. The fact that the one doing the hiring is the one responsible for destroying your source of income and way of life makes it that much worse. BP has made a huge mistake not hiring the locals to help with the cleanup effort. This has damaged BPs image even more than it was already damaged by the spill itself.
Keep in mind that most of the camps and hotel rooms that are being rented out are not owned by the local fishermen who have lost their income. The local restaurants may be benefitting from the influx that replaced the normal tourists, but restaurant owners/workers are not a large portion of the local population.
I also think that the author is reading things into comments. The cool reception to the outsiders may have nothing to do with race. Any large group of outsiders coming into a small southern LA town would get a cool reception. They are just not very wlecoming to outsiders, regardless of race. The displeasure about the neghbors may have more to do with their off work behaviour than with the fact that they are black. The people that live there are used to families coming in the stay at the camps. The quite enjoyment of a fishing camp you see from these families is far different from what you will see from a large group of single men sharing a house. I think the sheriff's deputy (DuBois is defintely not the efferson Parish Sheriff) may be over-emphasizing the race aspect of the locals' displeasure. the deputy may be expressing his own racist tendencies, not the true reasons for the displeasure on the part of the locals. It may also be that there is a shock due to cultural differences. If you are used to a family next door and have a group of single men, who tend to behave differently, move in next door you may have friction. The displeasure may be due to loud rap music blasting or people being outside at night making a lot of noise - who knows. There are behavioral norms that may be different and are causing the friction. The point is, the displeasure may come from something other than race alone. I moved to New Orleans from the northeast years ago and initially got a cool reception. I took a while for the locals to warm up, but eventually they did. I was one individual, not part of a large group and this was New Orleans, not a small town, so the I would expect the reaction to outsiders to be that much worse. I have no doubt that there are some people in this town that are racist, but I doubt it is a large number.
it's really sad that peaople "still " have to be judged by there color and not by what's in there heart.
SHAME ON YOU IN A TOWN DEVESTATED BY "OIL" AND "RACISIM"!!
This article saddens me greatly. Kari Huus is such an amazing reporter who writes deep, thoughtful and thought-provoking stories. To see her writing blog format, which is the absolute antithesis is what she usually does, is disappointing and a waste of a real talent. While this is a very well written blog entry, and her talent and abilities do show through, it is still disheartening. Hopefully this is an aberration, not the wave of the future for someone with such great talent.
The town folks of Grand Isle, must know now how the American Indians felt when whites brought disease and genocide to their villages. The Indians not only saw a "different nature" of folks but a completley different animal they had never seen before..... strange pasty deadly things moving in like cockroaches....
Actually, the disease reached the Indian villages long before 99.9% had ever seen a wjhite man. History is not your forte I see. Try reading pox americana to get an education.
I'd really like to know also how you get that analogy, this is nothing like that event in history. I don't really know if there is a historical equivilent to this. You have a wave of workers that are trying to come into an area to make money and do good by cleaning the environment of this disaster and you have a firmly rooted population that bases their mistrust off of something that is both financially driven as well as culturally stunted.
This same kind of analogy is the kind that upsets me just like the people who are comparing this incident to 911. Like this is Obama's 911.. truly it's a horrific event in our environmental history but comparing it to an uncomparable event which resulted in the death of so many of our american citizens is unfair and slightly disgusting. The same follows in comparing it, especially inaccurately, to the near extermination of a culture.
I can't believe these people gripe and complain about the oil spill the way they do and then have the gall to shun the cleanup workers just because they are black?? I have never heard anything more racist than to claim a rise in theft because the majority of the workers are black. Some of the contents of this article are stunning in this day and time. I, by the way, am white, but I do not have aproblem with black people and would not "expect a rise in violence and theft" just because I was among a large group of them. It is shameful that the people working hard to clean this up are being treated the way they are!!
SO terrible.....shame on these residents!! SHAME SHAME SHAME!!! Racism is so appalling in this day and age!! PLEASE!
having worked on natural gas transmission lines in new jersey in the late 80's- early 90's with a few welders and their helpers from that area the attitude i encountered was that anyone who lived anywhere beyond the immediate area -beyond 50 miles-was held in great contempt.
comments i frequently heard were along the lines of being a "yankee" which was their version of a racial slur.they were extremely distrustful and hostile towards anyone who didn't live in their world.extreme cultural prejudice along with a complete lack of tolerance for any who did not belong to their way of life.
the only blacks they are used to seeing are the ones on TV playing football for their beloved Saints and LSU Tigers.
Why aren't the local people being hired to clean this up? The spill took away their livlihood and BP should hire them so they can survive. Why import people when you have a workforce available? That is probably the main reason there is mistrust! And I'm sorry but you are talking about the deep south. Racism against blacks is as common as breathing. Things are changing but they're changing slowly.
The reason that the LOCALS are probally not being hired on to help is that the majority of the workers that are there are HAZ-MAT certified. Of course I am sure that there are other things the locals can be doing to help instead of being so rude to those who are there to HELP them!
According to the workers that are out there that are BOTH Black and White, they are being treated no better than dirt. For example, the staff that has been hired to make meals for the workers (this was a job local residents have), treat them terrible. They will refuse to feed them or sit down and eat food prepared for the workers in front of them. The workers are out there working in the heat and under protective clothing making the temp at time over 130 inside their clothing. For What???!!?? Being treated like crap. Keep in mind these guys are there to do their job, nothing more. They are aways from their homes, wives, family and friends. They are sent there to try and help the residents with the cleanup efforts so that they can at some point have there lives back.
I am sure if all of the workers left this to the residents they would then complain that no one is helping them - You can NOT have it both ways!! Suck it up and let the job get finished and soon you can have your way of life returned!
With all of the HATE - I can only wonder how they feel when our President is there - hummmm, makes you wonder!!
Lets see, in urban areas blacks are angry that outsiders come in and take their jobs and run their services. In NOLA racism is rampant as blacks blame hispanics for taking their jobs. When outsiders come into this small town and take the jobs and the locals get angry it just must be racism. Apparently, it is racism when blacks are offended but ok when it is hispanics or whites.
Chris You are racist only when you are non-black.
A "different nature" indeed. Can you say "inbred Southern cracker cheese-eating surrender monkey"? I got French heritage and am from Gulfport MS, and this seems fairly cut-and-dried racist to me.
cobigred--Maybe if they got off their fat, lazy [see picture above] asses and applied for the jobs, they'd have them. On the other hand, it is WORK, and Welfare is so easy...
Sheriff Doobwah--There's no law against renting to blacks next door, or no law against being teed off that they're there?
I giggled when I read they plan on bringing in a ship so the blacks can sleep. Did they mean slave ship? And ship them back to Africa?
Also, maybe the workers aren't actually blacks, but just black from the oil. He He.
And maybe you're just ignorant trash.
Chris who said one was "OK" and the other isn't other than you and Edd? Are you playing the victim card?
This environmental disaster has caused great economic damage to the shoreline communities. It would have been wise to hire as many locals as possible to work alongside the many more outsiders that will have to be brought in to clean up this mess. That said, the locals ought to appreciate that if the "outsiders" had not been brought in, their rental homes ,motels, stores, and restaurants would be completely deserted, and the damage to their local environment and economy would be far more long-lasting. This disaster is going to take a long time and a lot of "outside" help and "outside" money to fix. As an "outsider", I find myself maintaining more sympathy and concern for rural Louisianans if they aren't reminding me of the characters who shotgunned Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper in"Easy Rider". Ingrained racial and cultural prejudices cut both ways, and we all need to appreciate that we all need each other's goodwill to get this mess cleaned up.
Dammit, no spoilers!
Well said John S Smith.
The writer does not know a town marshall from a sheriff; Grand Isle is in Jefferson Parish, the Sheriff of Jeferson is Newell Norman not this guy; writers can't get their facts straight. I have fished from Grand Isle several times over the last 30 years; the people are friendly and the food is real good!f
I grew up in a small town in SE TX very close to Louisiana. This kind of behavior is normal for those folks. Anyone who is not from there is suspicious to a point. Black, brown, white, any color or race. If you're an "outsider" you are an "outsider" plain and simple. Visitors in small numbers are warmed up to quicker, but large numbers are never welcome, they live in small towns for a reason. It's just the way they're used to, and the way they want it to be. It has nothing to do with whether or not they want the oil gone, of course they want it gone. Also, they should be the first to get hired to do it too!
saxon, you are probably correct in your accessment of local friendliness, but are you a black or a "yankee" or someother "outsider"?
So now for these folks the shoe is on the other foot. Job related and prejudice as well. No sympathy from me. When U.S. oil field work was slowing here in the early 80's my company bid a job in Venezuela. The coon asses from Luisiana underbid us by less than half, no subsistance, no experience in this particular oil rig building project, etc. Then screwed up the job and and got run out of the country. Bunch of backasswards hicks. Welcome to the new millinium boys. Stay in the swamps where you belong.
Based on the article, I think there is more to it than a racist thing. Sure, the influx of strange balck men into an otherwise insular caucasian community is a shock. If there is only one resident black and very seldom if ever a black tourist, it will be strange for the locals.
That in itself is a shame. Black people in general are no worse or better than anyone else and we all need to learn more tolerance.
I believe the biggest issue is that these locals way of life has been drastically affected by the oil crisis. Their main source of income (fishing) has certainly been ruined in the short term, and quite possibly affected for the forseeable future as well.
To add insult to injury, there is an influx of strangers (remember, many of the tourists are regulars) and there are no jobs being offered to the locals. These people make a living from the water. Why are their skills and knowledge not being put to use?
Why are most if not all of the workers from somewhere else? In this small a community, where the main source of income has been so drastically affected by the actions of others, the bulk of the clean up jobs should go to the locals.
Is there racism involved? More than likely, as like it or not, I would bet all of us feel that way at least occasionally. Anytime we interact with some one who is different, for what ever reason, it is a natural tendency. The trick is to overcome those feelings and accept that people are different and get over it.
Has anyone ever lived or visited MOBILE,AL? Talk about a racist town,the police chief and mayor are....black,does that give you a clue. If you go to the gas station,the natives will not move for you if their in the way at all,only stare you down. At the grocery store,the natives working the check out will be real friendly to other natives,but when whitey gets to the check out,the natives will not speak or even make any eye contact with you,only ring it up and take/give your money back - no thank you or nothing said. I heard it's called reverse racism,and it's very much alive and well there,I quit my job and moved the hell out of there after only seven months. The crime and run down businesses,crappy streets,jail bars on most store fronts,and all the purple,orange,yellow,blue,etc run down houses were just too much for me to take. I wonder how there doing down there now?
seems to me not only is there reverse racism down there but the whites still think the civil war is still going on.the reason the locals are not hired is because they dont have the proper training . they need to go on line and sign up for a 40 hour hazwoper training class.typical southerners
There is always going to be a certain amount of prejudice no matter where you are. And all of it is due to ignorance and a lack of knowledge and understanding.
My problem with what was written in this article is the fact that the contractors did not hire any locals when they came in. I know that in some states contractors from "outside" are required by law to hire a percentage of locals and a percentage of ethnic backgrounds. Regardless of the laws, common decency requires that the locals be given a chance to work.
YWNM, so you are saying to let the locals (who are untrained in this type of spill cleanup) work in an environment that they know nothing about and make matters worse! Whatever!! The "outsiders" are trained to handle this environmental clean-up. LOCALS were offered jobs, and most of them turned them down because they wanted benefits. Are you kidding!!?? The contractors that are there do not get any benefits from BP, why should they be any different?
When you are offered a job and then turn it down because it does not give you insurance...give me a break. The people that are down there and WERE offered jobs were "self-employed" before the spill anyway, most without benefits. Give me a break! Help yourselves and take what others are willing to do to help!!
What a bunch of close-minded, swamp-logged, xenophobic, ungrateful, redneck, cracker babies! A great example of why Sherman should have burned down more than just Atlanta 150 years ago.
Pull out all of the "outsiders" and leave these retards to their oil covered beaches, 49th place schools, and 79 I.Q.'s.
Who are you calling a racist, you race-baiting racist! Give the racists their own racist holiday, and they want to sew a picture of Martin Luther King Jr. on every American flag! Pay particular attention to the racist who threw out the first racist insult. No, it wasn't the townsfolk, it was a racist stranger just passing through. Where are all these racist Africans coming from? Why don't they de-horn and join the human race?
All True. All true. Been through here before. Twice. The road dead ends at Grand Isle State Park so you have to turn around. Ha! However, I loved the place and the folks were quite pleasent to this Yankee. But take a look at all the posts on this "Discussion Page." Not too civil or polite are they. Many of them are down right nasty. People are the same everywhere you go. Grand Isle is no different. The cooking there is fantastic though.
If that is what it takes to keep people like Mcdummy out of the area and they could get rid of the cessna sized skeeters it might not be to bad a place to visit for a week.