How Is This Effective?

Apparently, anonymous supporters of Von Jennings’s candidacy for Mayor of Alexandria believe it’s relevant and appropriate to continually lampoon me for my physical disability.

It’s ironic, in many ways, because, at one point in her life, Ms. Jennings was charged with promoting diversity in hiring and contracting practices for the City of Alexandria. She was fired from that position, by the way, and today, she is launching her candidacy for Mayor out of the law offices of Bridgett Brown (who so generously donated to the cerebral palsy telethon yesterday; her $25 makes a real difference).

To me, JacquesBarack is a direct reflection of the campaign Ms. Brown is housing. Cerebral Palsy of Louisiana should return her paltry donation. I will reimburse them, no net loss.

I take this very seriously. I don’t deserve to be ridiculed for being disabled, and I believe that JacquesBarack’s “anonymous” blog was created to support and supplement a political campaign.

I have to wonder: How is this effective?

To anyone who supports Ms. Jennings,

If you care about her, renounce this. It’s bigoted. It’s stupid. It’s amateurish.

***

In all seriousness, this isn’t just about me. I’ve developed some thick skin during the last few years, and I’ve taken my fair share of online ridicule. But until recently, I’d never been attacked so deliberately for being disabled. My real objection to this campaign is that it’s an attack on cerebral palsy. If you’re going to criticize me, then at least have the dignity and integrity of criticizing my work, instead of my disability. Otherwise, you’re simply being bigoted. People with C.P. can be fully-productive, abled-bodied professionals.There’s no need or reason to conflate C.P. with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, unless you’re also attempting to attack a disabled person’s parents.

Yet that’s what supporters of Von Jennings are doing.

Publicly renounce JacquesBarack, Von. If you really want to be Alexandria’s Mayor, then start acting like one.

Responses

Matthew Butler

August 1, 2010

Disgusting.

Reply
Jim

August 1, 2010

Lamar,
It is despicable. I love blogging and reading blogs. I love the give and take and the sharing of political views and the discussion that ensues.
I would hope that not only your local politicians, but bloggers who are serious about what they do would denounce these sorts of tactics.
To disagree politically is one thing, but personal attacks are something else, and making fun of a physical disability is beyond the pale.
I noticed that this person doesn’t even allow comments; that says a lot.
As always, I enjoy reading CenLamar. Keep up the good work.

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Alex Cenla

August 1, 2010

I 100% agree with you. This Jacko Wacko Is doing nothing at all other that making an utter fool of him-herself and showing complete disregard for anything intelligent…and of course attacking anyone that makes an observation about his-her stupidity. I have yet to hear anything constructive come from this oracle. Jim makes a good point!
What has he or she got to offer for Alexandria’s future.. ZIP>>>NADA>>ZERO.

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Drew Ward

August 1, 2010

Dude I would say that the people who keep tossing out the FAS deal are specifically attacking your parents. It’s a shame and uncalled for. Yet, some people will always mistake a family’s financial success for unscrupulousness and there will always be others more than willing to fan the flames of such things.

Sadly in this case, people who have found their success through political corruption within a certain community in Alexandria are the very ones who attack you and your family based on the fact that your grandfather, dad, uncles, and mom were smart enough to recognize opportunity in Cenla where others saw none. AND, they had the guts to actually risk their own money to invest in the area. Those investments did and still continue to pay off for you guys but only through continued work.

Basically, they’re haters who have no reason to hate and are working off some misconception of massive wealth with no work involved.

I’ll throw my HT to you in here in the hopes some of these jackasses will read it. Lamar could easily just work within his family’s businesses and make more than most people in town do. He could also probably cash in on the networks of relatives and such and go out into business on his own and make plenty of money off the community. However, he has chosen to forgo a LOT of that and spends much of his time working for the City of Alex making development happen for everyone, for people who are even in direct competition with White Property Management, and he does it for what is really a pretty paltry wage. He makes enough to live on and not be poor. But he works for the people of this community for far less than he could make. He also works for the City of Alex for far less than that sort of job and those specific skills normally pay. What I’m saying is, get over yourselves. If any of the jacquesbarack people spent as much of their time and resources supporting this community as Lamar does, we wouldn’t need blogs and such because everything would be awesome!

Get a life. And if you want to show up Lamar, get off your asses and do even half as much for the community as he does. Oh yeah, and take a pay cut while you’re at it.

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1. dan cook
  
  August 5, 2010
  
  …”he does it for what is really a pretty paltry wage.”
  
  really?!!
  
  ” Lamar could easily just work within his family’s businesses and make more than most people in town do.”
  
  he already does make more than most in this town. and you know the above statement to be fact? how, b/c he told you?
  
  Reply
Darren Green

August 1, 2010

And I’ll match your $25.00 reimbrusement.

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Adrastos

August 1, 2010

Damn, Lamar, that’s some sick shit. Some people don’t know how to draw distinctions. Mocking you for your views is one thing but for your disability, that’s really vile.

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Lamar White, Jr

August 1, 2010

This post generated a response from local attorney/blogger Greg Aymond. An excerpt:

Well what do you think CenLamar is but a blog that supports and supplements Jacques Roy’s political campaign?

I bet Freddy is torn with so many Blacks in the Alexandria mayoral race against his boss Jacques Roy.

Freddy doesn’t yet understand that some bloggers hate him for his holier than thou high-falutin writing style. Who ever said that Freddy gets to make up the rules on blogging?

I personally don’t condemn Freddy’s disability, but I can understand why some would. But since Freddy tells his boss what is being written on the blogs and Jacques Roy doesn’t read them himself, which is about as ignorant as saying that he doesn’t read books, it will be unlikely that his boss will hear of Jacques Barack’s attack upon Freddy.

Being that I am better and more highly educated than Freddy and his boss Jacques Roy, I will consider myself above this fray.

First, I didn’t realize anyone “hated” me because of my “writing style.” It seems like a stupid and narrow-minded reason to hate someone, but then again, I can’t stand Dan Brown or Nicholas Sparks. (Not really).

Second, it’s also somewhat bizarre that Mr. Aymond claims to “understand” why people would attack me for being disabled, considering that Mr. Aymond is himself disabled and that he has, in the past, expressed an apprehension about others attacking him for having a stroke. But considering he was once a member of the Ku Klux Klan, I suppose it’s not too surprising that he understands bigotry.

Third, this is my personal website that I publish on my own time from my own computer. It’s not an extension of any specific campaign; it’s an expression of my own, personal opinions. Contrary to the meme that Mr. Aymond has repeatedly floated, I am NOT and have NEVER been paid to blog. He is lying.

Fourth, with all due respect, just because Mr. Aymond went to law school does not mean he is “better and more highly educated” than me or anyone else. What a trashy, self-aggrandizing, and ridiculous thing to say.

And finally, when you directly comment on this issue, you’re not keeping yourself “above the fray;” you are entering into the fray.

Reply
1. Drew Ward
  
  August 1, 2010
  
  One thing that I think should be pointed out regarding this site too is that Lamar is by far the center of it and the purpose it exists. Hell, he’s really the reason there even IS a Cenla blogosphere. But unlike these other sites, he doesn’t limit it solely to his own opinion. Over the life of the blog he’s invited others to contribute. Some mostly agree with him. Some totally do not. Some are no longer around because they have moved on to other things. Some have been asked to leave, not because Lamar disagreed with their writing, but because he had moral disagreements with them (btw that particular person did tend to write in a very over your head and dismissive style Lamar). Some are mostly silent because they need to be to do their jobs.
  
  I am one of the people Lamar has invited to write on this blog. I write a few other blogs in industries I work in, but Cenlamar lets me stay involved with my home. For the most part Lamar and I stay on the same wavelength regarding most issues. We’re both progressives (just so you know he’s a democrat, I’m a republican (I’ll explain this in a later blog post)). However, we don’t always see progress in the same way. And sometimes we have truly butted heads.
  
  My views are often a bit out there compared to Lamar. One reason for this is that while this is Lamar’s private blog, he is a public employee and has to limit much of what he writes to things that won’t interfere with his job. Also, if he’s working on something with the city, he can’t about it. I am a linguist and author and consultant by trade. I normally work for private industry or foreign governments, and on the rare occasions I work for an agency in the US it’s either at the very top federal or state levels and as of yet has never been in Central Louisiana. That said, when I think something, or find out a scoop on something, I am free to write about it and hope you guys enjoy reading the stuff I write, or at the very least that some of it makes you think.
  
  Lamar sometimes doesn’t agree with me. You can tell how much what I write freaks him out by how fast he throws DREW WARD: onto the article LOL. Sometimes I’ve written stuff that was an actual counter argument to what he’d written. Sometimes I’ve just said what I thought needed to be said by someone and it’s not been politically correct or it hasn’t been diplomatic. But it’s always been my honest opinion.
  
  What’s my point? While both Lamar and I have called each other to ask what the other thinks about something we’re working on, and while we’ve both called the other and said “woah man, you might want to reword that…” (and BTW Greg and I have also done the same regarding matters both blogs have covered. Back in the day the blogosphere wasn’t quite so polarized), that’s it. Lamar as the creator of the blog can edit and delete anything on here. He can also edit and delete comments (it’s a feature of wordpress that the primary always has ‘god’ settings).
  
  In (four years?) of my writing and posting on this blog, he has never once deleted something I’ve written. He’s never once told me to change my opinion, my style, or my points argued. He has sometimes called me in a panic and asked me to reword things when he realised they would be misread (and he was right in those times). Even in instances where the two of us have been absolutely on opposite ends of the spectrum though, he’s never once made HIS blog show only HIS opinion. I thank him for this and I thank you guys for giving me an outlet and chance to contribute to the local online dialog. But what I am getting at here is that Lamar is the only guy online in Cenla who doesn’t censor his blog so that only a given opinion is present. That is admirable. Period. Find that elsewhere, locally, online.
  
  Reply
perpetualrenovator

August 1, 2010

Well, I can tell you one thing that is “wrong” with your blog: it contains facts. I don’t believe I have ever read anything of yours that made wild, unfounded accusations against another person or entity. You can back everything you say up, that means a LOT and makes a lot of people skeered. I am sure you have noticed that most of the blogs that hate yours, are riddled with the above said wild accusations.

🙂

Why read JacquesBarack? I can’t stomach it. You are only giving it an extra blog hit when you click the link. Delete it from the roll bro-tha!

Reply
Drew Ward

August 2, 2010

Facts? Whatchu talking bout? You mean dat old machine?

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Suzanne Thompson

August 2, 2010

Well Lamar, common decency DOES still MATTER. JB is dooming his/her candidate. Thing of it is, There is not a single black person that I know who would condone such hatred. I will never visit that site again on principle.

Suzanne Thompson

Reply