New Orleans - Former city recovery director Dr. Ed Blakely, whose controversial comments are as familiar to the citizens of New Orleans as his recovery projects, slammed the city in a recent interview with a college television station.
During a two part interview, Blakely told University of California-Berkley reporter Yaou Dou that, "everyone's a racist. It's part of what we have in this country, but it's deeper, more viral, more visible and more entrenched in New Orleans than any place I've ever seen."
Blakely, who resigned earlier this year, said he wished he would have left his post as recovery chief earlier than he did because of health reasons and because there were things he wanted to do, "and administering a recovery is not one of them."
Blakely also said in the interview posted last month that in other places he has worked, like San Francisco, the professional culture is more sophisticated. He pointed to 30 percent of city staff members needing literacy courses while he was in New Orleans. He said the city had a tendency to work down to lower levels, rather than try to move forward.
Blakely painted a bleak future for the city as well, saying that there would be race riots unless the next mayor was "very clever."
