Oil cleanup brings 'strangers,' tension to towns
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Bcotton5
Members Posts: 51,851 ✭✭✭✭✭
White people cant even walk the streets of their hometown anymore....
GRAND ISLE, Louisiana — The women of Grand Isle are nervous. Used to be, they say, they could walk the streets of their beachside town alone, getting a little exercise after the hottest part of the day or setting out the trash after midnight.
Now, a waitress won't let her 14-year-old daughter stroll to the store for a Coke, a souvenir shop owner is afraid to sit on her porch after dark and a bartender deadbolts her door, a newly purchased gun nearby.
The vacationing families and sport fishermen who make this tourist town of 1,500 what it is are absent this summer, replaced by an army of workers brought in by BP to clean up the massive Gulf Coast oil spill.
The outsiders walk in small groups along Route 1 at workday's end and sometimes cut across lawns and under elevated houses to reach bars like Daddy's Money, where women wrestle in oil. Some wear low-slung jeans, which prompted this warning note on one convenience store door: "No pants on the ground allowed."
What do such reactions mean? A BP official says some culture clash is understandable, though he's occasionally seen outright racial bias at work. But talk to some of the mostly white residents, and they don't directly mention the skin color of the workers, most of whom are black.
The workers, they say, just act different. And that makes some people uneasy, even though the vast majority of the workers pose no threat.
"Never had a gun. Never had a weapon. Now I got a weapon right next to my bed," says McVey, who stopped taking her grandson to the park when cleanup workers moved into a trailer nearby.
"You go to the park and they come and they touch you and want to talk to you and they harass you," she complains.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38406839/ns/disaster_in_the_gulf/
GRAND ISLE, Louisiana — The women of Grand Isle are nervous. Used to be, they say, they could walk the streets of their beachside town alone, getting a little exercise after the hottest part of the day or setting out the trash after midnight.
Now, a waitress won't let her 14-year-old daughter stroll to the store for a Coke, a souvenir shop owner is afraid to sit on her porch after dark and a bartender deadbolts her door, a newly purchased gun nearby.
The vacationing families and sport fishermen who make this tourist town of 1,500 what it is are absent this summer, replaced by an army of workers brought in by BP to clean up the massive Gulf Coast oil spill.
The outsiders walk in small groups along Route 1 at workday's end and sometimes cut across lawns and under elevated houses to reach bars like Daddy's Money, where women wrestle in oil. Some wear low-slung jeans, which prompted this warning note on one convenience store door: "No pants on the ground allowed."
What do such reactions mean? A BP official says some culture clash is understandable, though he's occasionally seen outright racial bias at work. But talk to some of the mostly white residents, and they don't directly mention the skin color of the workers, most of whom are black.
The workers, they say, just act different. And that makes some people uneasy, even though the vast majority of the workers pose no threat.
"Never had a gun. Never had a weapon. Now I got a weapon right next to my bed," says McVey, who stopped taking her grandson to the park when cleanup workers moved into a trailer nearby.
"You go to the park and they come and they touch you and want to talk to you and they harass you," she complains.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38406839/ns/disaster_in_the_gulf/
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'Like any little town in the country'
Fears like McVey's don't surprise the men whose presence prompts them. Friday night, several black men in town for the cleanup sat in a grassy area near the island's only grocery store, deciding what meat to buy to grill for dinner. They said they hadn't been treated badly, though like most cleanup workers along the coast, they didn't want to give their names for fear of losing their jobs.
"This little town is just like any little town in the country," said one, who identified himself only as Daryl. "A bunch of strangers are going to scare them. A bunch of black strangers are going to scare them even more."
Another worker said he and his peers mostly just keep to themselves.
"People treat you OK," he said. "But they haven't put any picnics on for us."
People in town are talking about a recent stabbing, the first anyone can remember in ages (one published report said both victim and attacker were cleanup workers). Locals suspect the workers when items go missing now, including golf carts that folks often use to get around.
"You used to be able to go and enjoy yourself, you know? Have a few drinks with your friends," says 68-year-old Emma Chighizola, who used to sit outside and listen to the waves after a day of selling T-shirts and seashell tchotchkes at Blue Water Souvenirs. "Now it's kind of dangerous. There's too many strangers."
Parish Councilman Chris Roberts says he's witnessed "hostile environments ... no question." -
SMH @ Them calling the police because it was the first time they saw a black person...
