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Friday, August 22, 2008

L.A. Parker, dividing the city for political purposes since God knows when

Race-baiting Trentonian columnist L.A. Parker is once again hypothesizing that those working to hold the Douglas H. Palmer administration accountable have some sort of racial motivation in going after Communications Director Irving Bradley, for his apparent violation of the city’s residency ordinance.

Old Mill Hill reported that the politically-motivated Palmer supporter said that the people who successfully ousted Police Director Joseph Santiago for non-residency and are now going after Mr. Bradley are those who “don’t like blacks or Latinos,” on his radio show Thursday.

That’s pretty ridiculous considering the group of people working towards holding Mayor Palmer accountable, and especially considering my case. I grew up in West Windsor Township, a few miles up Route 1, and many tens of thousands of dollars up in median family income from Trenton. The demographics there are nothing like Trenton, with a mainly white population, a sprinkling of Asians, and very few blacks and Latinos.

Yet I love Trenton and that includes the blacks, Latinos, and others who live here. Despite the city’s problems I have found more friendly, worthy acquaintances and neighbors than I ever found among my neighbors in West Windsor, and many of those people have been blacks or Latinos.

My bona fide residence in the Broad Street Bank Building is the picture of well-functioning diversity, including all manners of differences. We have rich, poor, black, white, Latino, people working in business, and people living off welfare, yet I have never lived in place or seen an environment so lacking in animosity, suspicion, or unfriendliness.

Unlike many who refuse to dwell in Trenton – like Mr. Parker, Mr. Santiago, Mr. Bradley, and maybe even Mayor Douglas Palmer – I value living here, and part of that is living with healthy diversity in being exposed to all those different values, different classes, and different cultures that come from living among different skin colors.

I hope that in some rather unlikely way I will be able to continue to live here, as the city progresses and my career advances and I add years onto my life.

But if that happens, I hope that sometime in the future this city will be freed from the racially and politically-motivated diatribes of Mr. Parker, whose slanted news articles, hate-filled columns, and spin-filled commentary only serve to divide the people living within this city and the surrounding area, further retarding progress and keeping the city in its Palmer-era economic and social depression.

4 comments:

Nicholas Stewart said...

As a plaintiff in the residency suit against Mr. Santiago, Mayor Palmer, and the City of Trenton, the concern I carry - causing me to join the other residents in the suit - is that we, society, have too much trust in our system of law and order to govern us to have people like Mayor Palmer supporting the misdeeds of his appointed directors who are being paid taxpayer funded salaries.

That's my right.

It's my charge as a citizen of this country.

Democracy is participatory.

I didn't cast my vote to simply sit down and cross my arms until the next time to pull the lever.

No way! I am participating.

I am going to make sure my voice is always heard. Whether my advice/requests are given attention, well, I know that always can't be the case. But, I am going to do my best to see my interests are served.

That makes me free. That makes me an American.

If those elected and appointed to maintain law and order don't like the pressure of their constituents demanding silly things like their having to follow the same laws they create and enforce, I have one thing to say to them:

RESIGN and get the Hell Out of Trenton! Let those who want to do the job, first and foremost, and ensure a proper government is in place handle the tasking. It is far easier than our current administration can seem to manage. Watching this administration is very much like watching an episode of "The Office". It should be called, "The Municipality".

westwrdguy57 said...

I agree West Windsor has some of the most unfriendly people around. A lot of them out there are from other places and just move there for work due to its proximity to NYC. The ones who have lived there for generations, when it was all farmland, are pretty down to earth nice people.

I too would rather live here, than out in some of these newer neighborhoods springing up all around Lower and Upper Makefield Townships in Pa. There is the absolute worst for snooty people. The Yardley and Langhorne and Bensalem areas have the most Trenton haters of anywhere. They think over there is so wonderful, but it really stinks. Talk about snobs! But they don't mind coming over here to work. They are the reason all this major bridge work is needed to accommodate the growing influx of Pa people who come here for work and bring all their money back over there to spend. So this is a all around bad deal for us in many ways.

This is for another column though, but, someone should make Pa residents abide by the NJ state residency code as a condition to work for the state. If Governor Corzine enforced that code, there would be a lot less unemployment in Trenton and surrounding townships.

LA Parker should be careful about bringing race into this argument about residency. People here who perpetually have an axe to grind over racial issues could intentionally misconstrue a message like Parker's to start a race war, not likely...but could if things in the city get any more tense. LA Parker is someone people believe in. He has achieved status as an award winning columnist and reporter. His statements are perceived as being much more credible than some blogger.

Palmer has turned into one of them snobs I just referred to. He has distanced himself far from the very people who helped him years back get elected in the first place. His residency is the most important of all.

Mistër Cleän said...

Yeah, what Nicholas said... only, "The Office" is actually funny, and it doesn't cost me nearly $6K/year in "tribute" to enjoy the exploits of my pals at Dunder Mifflin (R.I.P. Wernham Hogg)

Pardon me for pointing out the obvious, but King Douglas' Court Jester has a vested interest in our City remaining in the Third World - I mean, have you seen some of the other crap he writes?!? Just, WOW.

Lacking a racial axe to grind, he'd be useless to any newspaper (even The Trentonian), and would soon be making me a taco, or sucking on a pipe in an alley somewhere.

See today's Rag for Larry's "hero's sendoff" to his boss, King Douglas "My focus entirely is always Trenton" Palmer, who is off to the DNC in Denver, hopefully with a fat stack of resumes.

Christine Ott said...

I know this is not the most thoughtful contribution to this conversation, but I just wanted to say that Glen and I -- and our new kid -- live in Wilbur 2. We're the minority here. Why would we live here if we hated blacks and/or latinos?

LA can sit on his pimply, racist ass, and pretend to be "keeping it real" by accusing the anti-Palmer Trenton residents of whatever. But he lives in Ewing, where there is less crime, better schools, and a wider variety of job opportunities for its citizens. Also, there are far more affluent and white people in Ewing than in Trenton, which makes me wonder about the possibility of self-loathing on the part of LA? Does he hate himself so much that he's redirected that hatred at the white folks in Trenton?

If he were dissing white folks in WW or Princeton or Bensalem or Yardley, I certainly wouldn't care too much because many of them do kinda suck -- and they REALLY don't care about Trenton (the real, heartbreaking stuff, in particular). But he's not terribly negative when it comes to suburban whites, because he has no balls. It's easy for him to pick on white folks here because there aren't that many, and because many of them are not aligned with Palmer, and he feels very cozy in Palmer's pocket. Idiot.

LA is a complete political suck-up, and it's revolting. Award-winning or no, maybe we should all see him for what he is: irrelevant. It's time to ignore this guy.