Via Dangerblond’s recap post of Rising Tide:
Arena made a statement in which he called New Orleans bloggers “hysterical” for writing about crime and calling for Eddie Jordan’s resignation and accused us of doing it because we want to see more black men to go jail.
I’ve never heard of Jay Arena before this day but his comments didn’t let me forget that our little progressive blogger conference couldn’t escape accusations of racism. And as I have stated before, the Jordan case is a poor and incorrect cause to pursue in regards to racism in the city. How about poor wages? How about police brutality? Never mind the black crime victims! The real victims are Eddie Jordan and the criminals!
Arena lost credibility by operating a statement that says absolutely we “want to see more young black men go to jail.” Pulling the card that fast and with such accusation and ignoring the argument about Jordan’s competence abruptly and wrongly changes the terms of the discussion, taking it off the DA and placing it on his critics. Thus, Jordan’s job performance no longer becomes the issue. That’s a crafty move that might work on an average crowd but not this one.
I looked over some of Arena’s work online. Impressive stuff. He should know however that if he’s going to try to take a stand in a conference such as this one, he should have a grasp on the importance credibility will play in his argument. And saying that we just want to see a bunch of black men go to jail is a reprehensible and stupid statement that questions his judgment and will lead me to take anything I read by him in the future with a certain grain of salt.
Of course, he also thought he could come into the conference, stump his views and not even pay the very cheap registration fee, saying he had no money. So not only were his statements broke, HE was broke!
I literally spent the last $20 I had on the meeting.
More posts on the conference coming soon.
Jay Arena, if that a real name is an asshole. He feeds on assholism.
I want Eddie Jordan to do his part to stop the killing.
So far this hear almost 200 Young Black Men have been Killed. I Seriously doubt that Eddie Jordan has put nearly that many murderers behind bars. On the balance I think we have more murderes on the streets now than we did a year ago.
I was fighting back every urge in me to ask Jay if there was a question anywhere in his three minute diatribe. When I found out the Kim kicked him out for not paying I’m now wishing I would have made an issue out of it. It’s really chickenshit to come to a conference, insult the attendees, hand out your propaganda, and try to skirt a measly 20 registration fee.
I disliked Jay before this event, I HATE HIM NOW!