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Baton Rouge Business Profiles interview Ed Buggs
Open Mic with Ed Buggs
What's Bugging Ed Buggs? Ed writes: I'll tell you what's buggin' me: the fact that you and I may end up paying for the apparent stupidity of Orleans Parish District Attorney, Eddie Jordan. Have you been keeping up with this? Eddie Jordan is the man who, while U.S. Attorney in New Orleans, successfully prosecuted former Governor Edwin Edwards. Jordan went on to parlay that popularity into politics and was elected the first black District Attorney in the history of New Orleans. But on day eight of Jordan's tenure as DA, he walked into the office and promptly fired 57 of the 73 white people who worked there. Just fired them on the spot. They sued. They won. The Federal Courts ruled that Jordan was guilty of racial discrimination. Duh! Anyway, the courts also ruled that Jordan was to pay them $2.8 million dollars. TWO POINT EIGHT MILLIONS! This is money Jordan claimed the DA's office just doesn't have. And now comes the attorney's fees for the lawyers who represented those who sued. The lawyer fees come up to $1.4 million dollars. This means that DA Eddie Jordan has now run up the tally to $4.2 million bucks. All over his idea to fire 57 people, all white and replace them with, well, I'll get to that later. What's really chapping me about this is that we have now learned that it's possible that the taxpayers of Louisiana will have to pay this. EXCUSE ME? I'm still trying to figure out what in the world was Eddie Jordan thinking Or was he thinking? Did he really expect those employees to just walk out of the door and disappear? Oh, but wait. I didn't tell you the best part. Those 57 employees have all been replaced, and, you guessed it: HE REPLACED THEM WITH ALL BLACK PEOPLE! Are you kidding me? I kid you not. You talk about blatant! See, here's what bothers me. If Eddie Jordan had been white and fired all 57 black employees, you would have human rings around the D-A's office with people singing, "We shall overcome" and Rev. Jesse Jackson would have flown in and given speeches that rhyme every other sentence or so and people would have sworn the anti-Christ had just arrived. This is wrong, people. It's just flat out wrong. If racism is wrong for white people, it's wrong for all of us. And you know what? It shouldn't take a person of color pointing this out for everyone to realize it. Let me say this another way. It's a shame but, if a white guy were writing this article, it would be looked upon as racist, but it's not. If I've learned anything it's that right is right and wrong is wrong. But hold everything. Jordan is no dummy. You don't get to be U.S. Attorney and be a dummy, do you? I think not. I figure this way. Either Jordan is out of control and has an attitude of "to hell with everyone else" or he's just plain stupid. For his part, Jordan has hinted that these employees were not going to be team players and (in so many words) that these people would not have been on his team. I say, "OK fine" but systematically take them out. Routinely find their work to be unsatisfactory and let them go. But a wholesale firing like this smacks of pride and ego out of control; smacks of racism; smacks of flat out disregard for other human beings. You know what? I for one say, Eddie Jordan needs to go. If he can't be trusted to handle his own office affairs any better than this, how is justice from his office handled with the general public? Something else. Why hasn't the City of New Orleans raised more of a stink about this? Could it be that because New Orleans is a "chocolate city" this whole thing will be swept under the rug? It makes you wonder, does the City approve of this kind of behavior? Many people don't like to hear these kinds of comments, especially from a black guy. They say, "just let it go brother"; they add, "white people do this all the time, Eddie just got caught." I'm sorry, but none of those arguments make it right. Another thing, I don't want to pay a nickel to cover up this guy's lack of judgment. I say, let Jordan repay the money or let Jordan take a walk.
Send Ed an e-mail at Ed@EdBuggs.com Listen to Ed weekdays from 2 to 6 p.m. on 1300AM WIBR Watch "The Ed Buggs Show, Real Talk, Real People" on KZUP Cable Channel 13 at 9 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. weekdays Brought to you by: Frank's Restaurant, It's all good.
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Last issue's Business Profiles' interview with Ed Buggs inspired so many spirited responses we thought we'd invite Ed back to ask the question: