Banned by AmericaBlog!
Every day I visit four or five of my favorite progressive blogs. One of these is AmericaBlog published by John Aravosis. The major focus is on inside-the-beltway politics. This blog is listed on the blogroll in the right column on this page and I've recommended it to colleagues and friends.
Last night John published this post titled, "NOW and NAACP make fools of themselves defending wackjob Rep. McKinney's rediculous racial complaint ." As I read the piece I first thought this was some kind of April Fools joke - meant as take-off on one of those hateful right-wing blogs. I soon found out it was no joke. The post was not merely a slapdown of Congresswoman McKinney but it also included a demeaning comment about Harry Bellafonte - one of my very favorite human rights activists.
I believe Ms. McKinney has done more to advocate on behalf of Katrina survivors than any other Congressperson.
I was pissed off at the tone of this post...and baffled that AmericaBlog could publish such material. I posted a critical comment. The comment was not abusive but it did suggest an undercurrent of racism in the post. Later, I went back to the site and discovered I was banned from posting comments. My original comment was deleted. Of course I wasn't the only person banned.
At this stage over 500 comments have been posted - many of them of them highly critical. This does not include the comments that have been deleted. A while ago I unsuccessfully made another attempt to post a comment. I wanted to tell John to express regrets to his AmericaBlog community. Looks like I may be banned for life.
I know as a blog publisher that it's easy to go overboard sometimes. If I'm feeling intense about an issue I'll sometimes save the post as a draft and sit on it for a few hours. This is the advice I wanted to pass along.
Update (Sunday morning):
John A's post has been taken down but you can find a copy (with comment) over at Steve Gilliard's blog.
Last night John published this post titled, "NOW and NAACP make fools of themselves defending wackjob Rep. McKinney's rediculous racial complaint ." As I read the piece I first thought this was some kind of April Fools joke - meant as take-off on one of those hateful right-wing blogs. I soon found out it was no joke. The post was not merely a slapdown of Congresswoman McKinney but it also included a demeaning comment about Harry Bellafonte - one of my very favorite human rights activists.
I believe Ms. McKinney has done more to advocate on behalf of Katrina survivors than any other Congressperson.
I was pissed off at the tone of this post...and baffled that AmericaBlog could publish such material. I posted a critical comment. The comment was not abusive but it did suggest an undercurrent of racism in the post. Later, I went back to the site and discovered I was banned from posting comments. My original comment was deleted. Of course I wasn't the only person banned.
At this stage over 500 comments have been posted - many of them of them highly critical. This does not include the comments that have been deleted. A while ago I unsuccessfully made another attempt to post a comment. I wanted to tell John to express regrets to his AmericaBlog community. Looks like I may be banned for life.
I know as a blog publisher that it's easy to go overboard sometimes. If I'm feeling intense about an issue I'll sometimes save the post as a draft and sit on it for a few hours. This is the advice I wanted to pass along.
Update (Sunday morning):
John A's post has been taken down but you can find a copy (with comment) over at Steve Gilliard's blog.
posted by Ed Deevy at 1:43 PM
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