Frankly, I was ashamed of my fellow Blogcritics. I have no special association with Yeagley, and have no need to answer for him. As a leading Blogcritic though, I'm publicly intimately associated with this site. Its reputation does reflect on me.

In fairness, these more extreme reactions of Blogcritics represented the work of only a few of us. It perhaps seemed like "everyone" when it's a couple of dozen (among several hundred Blogcritics) against one, without much defense.

The reaction of the more vehement Blogcritics was 100 times worse than anything Yeagley did. He displayed a rather crappy disposition towards black folks, yes. But he wasn't spinning elaborate wishes for physical suffering, dismemberment, and death on Janet - let alone black folks in general. The Blogcritics looked like an evil torch-bearing mob from some cheesy Western, there to hang 'em a racist! Not a single mind among them turned on and working.

On top of which, I was committing some kind of offense against racial sensitivity and common decency simply by not participating in this hatefest. Indeed, just having quoted something innocuous by this guy constituted a grave and perhaps unforgiveable offense. If I were ever to hope to be considered acceptable in polite company, I was expected to lead the crowd in an Orwellian Two Minute Hate to prove that I really, really hate Yeagley and that I really, really like black folk. Seriously, this seemed to be the expectation as best I could tell.

This obviously wasn't going to happen. If faking some ridiculous mob mentality is the price of acceptance, then reject me. I'm not having anything to do with promoting this kind of nonsense. It's unfortunate that I invoked the name of the Evil Injun, but I'm not going to affect some ridiculously disproportionate outrage to make up for it. If this causes you to judge me ill, then you're just wrong.

I did not and would not defend Yeagley's more obnoxious views. Nonetheless, I might have been more adamant in criticizing him than I was. Partly, that was just defensiveness on my part. The more it looks like me vs the world, the more apt I am to dig in my heels in my own defense.

Still, where is your moral compass? Other than the Olsens, I don't recall any of the Blogcritics acting as upset over Palestinian masssacres of little Jewish children in the Intifada as they did over one stupid little picture on a website.

In short, I wouldn't participate in a public lynch mob like this because it's not right. Yeagley committed a misdemeanor hate crime at worst,