I have to admit I was floored by the response to the Alastair/AR post, as I often feel as if I’m writing in a vacuum, reciting to a half-empty room. I assumed I would let off some steam, a few people would tweet it, and that would be that. Apparently it touched a nerve. So much so that, after a while I had to close off the comments – as much for my own peace of mind as for my strong conviction that the points raised should be discussed in public, by the community, in a meaningful way.

I accept that it was not my most reasoned and reasonable writing and I plan to more fully articulate my arguments in a more thoughtful and considered essay. I stand by what I wrote, I regret that the points I was trying to make were muddied by the tone and haste in which they essay was written.

Even in the heat of the moment, constructive things can develop. After I closed the comments I received a pointed, but constructively critical email from Keith Hennessy which he asked me to include in the comments. I demurred and offered to post it separately. While he  doesn’t “accept the action of closing the comments” her recognizes that “… online debate does have a limited life span often with diminishing returns…”

Following debate on Facebook and Laura Larry Arrington’s statement that I was “privileging another cis white man’s voice over all others, posting it as another essay,”  I have moved Keith’s response back to the comments section and re-opened comments on the original post.

Have fun.