After week with his face serving as a ubiquitous symbol of perceived overreach by young, optimistic entrepreneurial Detroiters, Dandelion Detroit's Jason Lorimer responded to the notoriety with a Huffington Post column about "participating in conversation," though he seems to add little to said conversation.
Huffington Post: The following day someone created a meme online -- An Entrepreneurial White Guy meme. "It spread through the interwebs like wildfire" as one reporter put it. Now, while I am certainly not thrilled about the concept of someone using my picture as a medium, I realize it is not about me. In poking fun at me, many people were expressing dissent at the disproportionate amount of access and press coverage caucasian entrepreneurs receive in a city that is predominantly African-American. This is an important conversation at the surface level of a much deeper issue and one that is integral to progress. The fact is that I have the kind of access that allows me to pursue my goals. Many do not. Particularly those in the neighborhoods of Detroit where entrepreneurship matters most. We agree on this and we are talking about it and now we all need to do something about it. Participating in conversation is good -- being proactive, welcoming and productive is even better. We're getting closer to synergy between us all. This is the goal. In the coming days I am meeting with many of the folks most vocal in response to the article. I hope to seize the moment and together make widely known existing access points for entrepreneurs across the city. If we can crack participation we can tackle everything else.
You have to give this cat credit because it takes genuine skill to say so much without saying anything at all.
Does he address fellow HuffPo blogger John Patrick Leary's analysis of what Leary dubs as "solutionism" run amok?
No, he does not.
Does he address Aaron Foley's point in Jalopnik about the limits of entrepreneurship to solve the city's systemic problems.
No, he does not.
All he does is prattle on about continuing a dialogue without doing anything to advance the dialogue. In fact, Lorimer doesn't even bother linking to those more thoughtful criticisms and instead cites a South Carolina news story about a different meme.
But I'm not complaining. In fact, if I run into Jason Lorimer around town, I'll buy him a drink. His blah blah synergy yadda yadda integral to progress derp derp proactive speak kind of proves my point about the rhetoric bubble.
