Ed Dunn is a guy that runs a search engine called Fooky, which I wrote about here. Ed is a controversial guy and regularly leaves comments on TechCrunch. Sometimes he supports me, and often he disagrees. He’s always taken reasonable positions, but today he accused me of some pretty bad things. I took offense and emailed him privately with my objections.
Well my dad just called and told me someone had accused me of being a racist. I clicked through to his link and saw Ed’s personal site for the first time. I found out today that Ed is an African American. And he’s just accused me of being a racist.
Ed, You are wrong. I’m not a racist. I never knew your race and it doesn’t matter to me a bit. But today you’ve called me a liar, a cheat and a racist I think that was uncalled for. The race card is a powerful weapon and you should use it very carefully.
Update: My wonderful email exchange with Ed:
—– Original Message —–
From: Ed Dunn
To: ‘J. Michael Arrington’
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2006 2:47 PM
Subject: RE: your comment
I never called you a cheat and liar, I personally called you a subtle racist and a person with an agenda. The Wall Street Journal portrayed you as the unethical one and I suspected at all along. You talk as if someone need you after finding out what you are all about.
Simply put…Go fuck yourself clown.
Ed Dunn
—–Original Message—–
From: J. Michael Arrington
Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2006 1:37 PM
To: edunn@fooky.com
Subject: your comment
I always appreciated your comments, even when they took opposite opinions from me. But today you straight out called me a cheat and a liar. I’d appreciate it if you never came back.
Mike
Mike, you are not a racist. Ed had a misunderstanding of that old Wikipedia article.
Mike,
I Know that you are totally NOT a racist.
i think it just a misunderstanding between Ed and you that you should talk it through.
i also think that to tell Ed not to enter your site again is wrong. just invite him to stay and read you more, and more, in your notes and in TechCrunch then he will see for him self what kind of person you really are.
Ed,
I Just have to tell you someting from my heart and i hope you’ll get it in the right way.
i know what is the feeling when some one is a racist toward you. i’m Jewish and Mike is Christian and he NEVER let me feel wrong or bad about what i am. (and we date so..)
i’m telling you, he is not a Racist. actually the opposite is true.
For both of you i say: just go to diner and talk it through. both of you will feel better to know that you’r wrong.
internet can be so UNhuman some times…
Hey Mike - really unfortunate post and accusation by Ed. Sorry it happened to you. Keep positive. Thanks for the great work your site produces.
Best,
Tony
This won’t sound PC, but why all the emphasis on the face that he is black? I really don’t think anyone cares about his race except him. Fooky isn’t particularly intuitive, I doubt his lack of buzz has anything to do with race.
I’m sure almost everyone understands you are not racist, it’s unfortunate now how quickly people play the race card.
Everyone who knows Mike will be able to tell you that he isn’t racist.. this fool is complaining about not getting *good* reviews as you had already written about fooky.. I think this stunt was an effort to get attention. sad sad sad lame lame lame..
You have to understand where the African American man has come from, the pain of fighting inequality for generations.
Ed Dunn came out of the projects, down south of the Midway - and started up Fooky.com, one of the top search engines in the ‘below 20′ Alexa category.
I demand you take this post down, as it is a stereotypically prejudiced attack on Ed Dunn, making him look like the ‘outraged and racially sensitive black man thinking the white man is out to get him’, the image white establishment hides behind when it comes to dealing with real racial concerns in this country.
When you issue an apology, and give black operated sites equal time as white operated ones (every Scoble reference, one Dare Obsanjo), then I think we will a little farther on our long journey to repairing the deep and fundamental racial divide in the tech industry and our nation as a whole.
Fight On My Brothers!
Alex Haley
Chin Up Michael! I’m guessing that there can’t be many more frustrating things than being accused of being a racist if you aren’t.
Also, in an industry which is forward looking by definition, does race really influenece anyone any more?
Alex, you’ve got to realise that Michael has a right to at least comment on this. Being white and accused of rascism if you’re not reacist is pretty harsh. It’s not easy to disprove and when people throw mud it can stick.
I read Ed’s blog yesterday and really thought hats off to the guy for fighting what has obviously been major prejudice in his youth. Problem is, just because someone’s had a s**t time in the past doesn’t mean that if he is making accusations of rascism he is ‘off limits’ if the target of that allegation wants to make a considered comment to the contrary.
Alex - are you being sarcastic?
Sorry to monopolise this comments section, but I went back to the post on Ed’s weblog I read yesterday. It’s really worth reading the comments on it (there are three, in case one ends up getting deleted):
http://www.dreamandhustle.com/article.aspx?a=Techcrunch%20and%20Tech%20Bloggers
and then read the link mentioned in comment 3:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2005/09/07/the-ugly-but-necessary-side-of-wikipedia/
Ed, you’ve really got the wrong end of the stick here.
Is it just me, or does Fooky not work in Safari? I can’t get it to do anything.
I think that Alex Haley comment is just someone hiding behind a pseudonym trying to stir shit up. The real Alex Haley died in 1992.
Hey Paul, thanks for the observation. I guess I fell for it hook, line and sinker, albeit I hope I didn’t have the knee-jerk racist reaction which this type of thing normally tries to provoke.
Looking at it from the point of view you mention you’re probably spot on. It’s a classic right wing bigot trick to take the ‘for’ case so far to the fringe (like the Alex post) that idiots like me then respond by becoming more racist to counter this. Should have spotted this one!
All you need is a cursory knowledge of literature and to know that it’s Black History Month, Jack.
I think I missed something in the translation. Didn’t you give Fooky.com a positive review? I think that is more than most even get.
Mike,
I’ve been following your RSS feed for a good while now and I have to say that you’re doing a good job. As far as Ed and his comments don’t sweat it. Here is why.
There are many words, adjectives and descriptors that can be applied to any of us. We as people allow those words to carry weight and harm us. Whether the word is a derogatory term referring to a woman like b**tches or ho’s, a term referred to a white man like red neck or honky, or a derogatory name against any other group, white, black, old, young, smart, stupid, whatever, the only weight that word has is what YOU give it to work against YOU.
If someone calls me a bad word I simply blink and smile. Why? Because there are only a few people in this world whom I allow to have power behind any of these terms. The rest, well from them its just words because I refuse to let them matter enough in my emotional well being and self respect for it to carry the damaging weight.
People in this society are constantly looking for something to defend against. Perhaps its the result of evolution bringing us to a place where we have little or no use of our fight or flight response. Perhaps some people simply revel in conflict. Whatever the reason just keep my words in mind and you will be fine.
In the end there is only one or two people in the world you need to prove yourself to. Yourself, and if your religious perhaps your god. Simple as that. Everyone else, well let them have their drama because an enlightened person will know that in the end the pain they feel from words or non physical actions are strictly their own fault for giving someone the power to hurt them. You can care about your fellow man, without letting his opinion harm you in any way….
Richard
This is just stupid. Oh, well, you’re not alone: craigslist is being sued for “discriminatory” housind ads in Chicago. They don’t seem to care that it’s just a platform, not providing it’s own content.
Affirmative action in Web2?
Ed is Dunn in my book.
Coming from a former English colony, I have a hard time reading Ed’s blog.
Having said that, many of the companies that Mike does feature have non-white entrepreneurs involved. Specifically, many of these individuals are of Indian origin and they don’t seem to get “snubbed” at all — believe that. Riya is just one example.
If you want to be critical of TechCrunch, ask him to stay away from the hyperbole and sensationalistic stories.
i am pretty sure that race / ethnicity are not application or registration questions anywhere on the net. am i missing something? mike has done a fabulous job reviewing upcoming web 2.0 services and i have never picked up on any racial bias on any of his pieces.
to mike,
keep the good work up! being of asian descent, i know exactly how powerful (both positive & negative) flashing the race card can be. i understand that racial tension still exists in the real world, but i would like to hope that modern technology and the internet are safe havens to such stereotypes and issues.
to ed,
i took the time to read through your post. i read reread the piece a few times in order to imagine myself in your shoes. the fact that you’ve started an online search engine is awesome! kudos to your determination and hard work. unfortunately, i can not side with your accusations citing discrimination. your statement Techcrunch is as insignificant as a small fry sitting at the bottom of the McDonald’s bag in the big scheme of things seems bitter and unsupported. you mentioned that fact that search engine watch had failed to cover fooky.com, yet danny sullivan claims to have no evidence of correspondences between fooky and SEW. (it looks like you received a mini review in your comments)
lets keep the race cards at bay. mike, keep up the great work. ed, actions speak louder than words. strong web services speak for themselves.
Hmmmm… website not doing so hot, so accuse Mike of something bad to stir things up and POOF: Traffic!
I especially liked the “us” vs. “them” terminology in Ed’s blog. So off base…
Wow, this whole episode is crazy!
Ed Dunn has always posted some pretty inflammatory things about Mike on techcrunch. He always seemed to have an issue with Mike…I didn´t quite understand it. If you(Ed) don´t like this site so much..why come here every day and comment. I´m African American…I can´t understand how Ed assummed discrimination unless he sent a photo or something..haha! His comments have always been “quacky” and this is just another one of those quacky outbursts…but this just hits that sensitive “race” button. It disturbs me because it drowns out real cases..like the sheep that cried Wolf. Carry on Mike..and ignore this garbage.
Ok so after all this controversy I decided to take a look at Fooky. Yes I guess Ed’s tactic here worked. The problem for him is that I think that there are real problems with his site.
You can check out my review here:
http://1000flowersbloom.typepad.com/1000_flowers_bloom/2006/02/reviewing_fooky.html
Mike is not a Racist
Mike is not a Racist
I’ve seen Mike write things throughout the last year, and seen him chat, and the guy seems like one of the nicest guys that you’ll ever meet.
The fact that the race card is being played is sad, you can’t overuse it, or otherwise it will become obsolete.
Hmm…it frustrates me when people make such a big deal about race, especially when no racism was meant.
Nice blog, by the way. Regularly-updated and well-written web 2.0 blogs are sometimes hard to come by.
When you issue an apology, and give black operated sites equal time as white operated ones
Mike: add to your “submit your company for review” page a dropdown box for the race of the owner as it appears you need to track that as well.
Ed and Mike, thank you for being involved/caring/courageous enough to follow up on this conflict and create a place to discuss it.
I think Orli had some extremely insightful comments. I would love to know that Michael and Ed find a way to move beyond this and learn from each other.
I am a white male. As far as I’m concerned, this is *extremely* relevant. I am frustrated when I read some of the comments (”Affirmative action in Web2?”) from people who write as though white men can simply blink and erase centuries of oppression. In my experience of the world, a person’s thoughts come to them from somewhere beyond their immediate conscious knowledge. I think I could establish this assertion in more thourough terms, drawing on research, etc (http://emlab.berkeley.edu/symposia/sage02/slides/laibson3.pdf, http://whohastimeforthis.blogspot.com/2005/12/limits-of-rationality-beware.html), but I’ve already gone way over any reasonable comment length…. My point is, if you accept the existence of non-conscious processing, a person cannot determine if a thought they had is racist.
Michael asserts that he didn’t know Ed’s race before the purported racist behavior, but it is eminently possible that he had indicators and that those indicators affected his thoughts. If I’m daring, I’ll additionally assert that a speaker has some responsibility beyond the words themselves. In other words, if the listener hears racism, there probably is racism. If someone has the courage to speak out and describe a racist behavior, the almost unavoidable immediate response is a defensive one, “I am not a racist”. After this response, it is worth asking, “I’m sorry; I didn’t intend my actions to be racist. Can we come to some sort of common ground here?”
There is so much work to be done; I think we all need to be extremely humble.
As an Asian American and Co-founder of Newsvine, I’m solidly behind Mike in this underhanded attempt to generate interest in a product at the expense of Mr. Arrington’s reputation.
The allegations against Mike are completely unfounded, and a public apology is in order.
Is Ed Dunn a homophobe?
His derogatory use of the word ‘gay’ (as a synonym for bad/undesirable) would seem to suggest this:
“…everyone thought it was gay…”
“…that prison gay shit…. ”
From: http://www.urbanexpose.com/story.ue?n=88 (you’ll need to search the page for the text)
Ed Dunn’s alias is ‘30rotten’ (as admitted to by Mr. Dunn himself in the same thread).
So, Mr. Dunn, do you have something against gay people? Are some forms of descrimination or bias okay but not others? I look forward to your response.
FYI, this was easily found with a little search engine called ‘Google’ that you vehemently deride in your blog (oh sweet irony..)
Mike Arrington loves black people.
Well, either the angry black dude will be ignored (after we get tired of posting comments here) or we will soon see the Flickr photos of these two hugging and making up.
The “tech community” has hokey, remedial problems with *white women* let alone using tantrums to get these “experts” to incarnate several thousand years of African history.
This poor colored fellow has unleashed hordes of sohpomoric poets who will use their left-brain dominance to parse meaningless details and bomb innocent civilians by accident. “Dude, you’re like… dude…”
Eric (a couple of comments above): What total nonsense:
“Michael asserts that he didn’t know Ed’s race before the purported racist behavior, but it is eminently possible that he had indicators and that those indicators affected his thoughts. If I’m daring, I’ll additionally assert that a speaker has some responsibility beyond the words themselves. In other words, if the listener hears racism, there probably is racism. If someone has the courage to speak out and describe a racist behavior, the almost unavoidable immediate response is a defensive one, “I am not a racistâ€. After this response, it is worth asking, “I’m sorry; I didn’t intend my actions to be racist. Can we come to some sort of common ground here?—
To assert this is to say that an accusation by its very nature must be true, and the accused, regardless of whether or not they are guilty, should apologize. Your reasoning is absurd and dangerous, and this type of crap is exactly why people need to be careful using the race card.
Eric - were you stoned when you posted that? I guess if you deny it, you clearly were.
Mike said:
“To assert this is to say that an accusation by its very nature must be true, and the accused, regardless of whether or not they are guilty, should apologize.”
Yeah, I think this is true in the case of communication. Specifically, if a listener explains that they understood your statements to be A, then you have communicated A. A common response is to say, “But I didn’t say A, I said B.” This rarely moves the conversation forward. I think that the apology itself is immaterial, the important part is acknowledging (at least partial) responsibility for the miscommunication.
I do not understand fully from Ed’s blog post why he thought that you were using race or personal financial gain as dishonest factors in techcrunch reviews. But I don’t get the impression that he is lying. I think he actually does believe that. To ignore him is completely web1.0. You didn’t ignore him though, you responded. And that is sweet. But now you should take his complaint to heart. Maybe there is a way to communicate to him. Maybe not. Some communications just aren’t worth it and maybe this is one of those situations. The comments have been interesting though. Where the fuck did this whole “playing the race card” idea come from? If someone has the sense that race/sex/etc might be an unfair factor in a decision, shouldn’t they just speak up?
I realize now that I may have implied the wrong emotion in my first message. I think that techcrunch is a fantastic service. Definitely one of the best blogs out there. I think that your personality comes accross well and you seem like someone I’d like to meet and talk with someday. I am nervous writing this response because I feel like it might be just digging a deeper hole. But I care about these issues and I know that I have a fairly unique and useful perspective.
Eric, I coud go on and on, but the problem with your argument is that people can rely on it to manipulate others. You assume accusations, even if false, are made in good faith, or have something to do with the person accused. I think if you read Ed’s blog you will see a history of blame. If he hadn’t publicly called me an unethical person, I would be willing to spend my time engaging with him. But he did harm to me and I need to protect myself.
I had nothing but good thoughts for Ed until yesterday. I wrote positively about his company and enjoyed his lively and intelligent comments. Frankly, I didn’t even know he was angry with me. But yesterday he turned on me and made some pretty nasty accusations, and his race should not be an excuse for his behavior.
When people embrace ideals such as yours, which entirely ignore the realities of human nature, incredibly bad things tend to happen historically. People need to be responsible for their words and their actions, and the harm that those words and actions might cause others.
If I had made a single statement or gesture that could be interpreted as racist or even insensitive, I’d be apologizing all over the place. But as far as I can tell, there is nothing even Ed can point to.
Eric My point is, if you accept the existence of non-conscious processing, a person cannot determine if a thought they had is racist.
Dude, like imagine we’re all in the Matrix like on the head of a pin. Except that pin’s pushed into some fabric with like a millions other pins. Whoa, that just like blows my mind.
I really can’t see your point. A person can’t tell that they themselves are racist, only an outsider can point that out? And if he/she does then it is immediately 100% true? Huh?
Mike, I don’t at all disagree with your right to defend yourself. I think it is great that you’ve done that. But I think this blog entry, and particularly the comments, have not gone anywhere from that point.
The fallacy is being propagated that an adversarial basis is the only one available. The typical response is essentially, “You are *right* and ed is *wrong*.” I’m confident there is some sort of middle ground. You haven’t posted your personal message to Ed, so I have no idea if you have already done some searching for the middle ground and given up. I accept that this is sometimes the best thing to do. But if so, can the discussion go somewhere interesting without Ed?
Absolute correctness is something that is of supreme consequence in law or science. In a discussion like this, I think the more important question is “Where can we go from here.” Ed heard something much different than what Mike intended. Where did Ed’s interpretation come from?
Perhaps Ed’s reasoning is purely emotional. He thinks fooky is great and the only reason anyone could think otherwise is that they are racist. In my opinion, after having played with fooky, this is a pretty weak position.
Perhaps his reasoning (whether subconcious or conscious) is that an attempt at race agnosticity in the broader tech world has resulted in a pretty shitty deal for black people and that this is unfortunate. Without having researched this question, I have to go on intuition. But my intuition tells me that this is an extremely strong position. (I’m not saying that it is Ed’s position; there is some indication that Ed might be thinking along these lines. He said, “Fooky.com was being snubbed by a lot of media outfits” in his most recent posting.)
What are other possible positions that Ed could take? What is the strongest possible position?
(I just reread Getting to Yes and I put 100% of the blame on Fisher and Ury for me being so annoying…
Do a search for Bill Gates on fooky.com and you’ll get 2 results. That’s two, as in the single digit 2.
Amazingly, you get 5x as many records returned when you search for Michael Arrington.
If the service was worth more attention, at least he would have something to fall back on and displace the unfounded race card.
If the glove doesn’t fit…
Mike, sometimes its best to turn the other cheek and ignore insults. A quick look at the insulter shows someone who seems to be pretty angry at everyone and seems to think he knows more than everyone else out there. Just point users to some of his blog posts where he rants against the world and let that speak for itself and move on. It’s really not worth the time it will take for you to continue responding.
Just my 2 cents.
By the way, my company is about to put out the first “web 2.0 database” - built specifically for AJAX and mashups (what GoogleBase could have been), and I am hispanic so if you don’t write it up you hate my people
Wow Mike, what a train wreck this guy Ed has dragged you into. He is clearly delusional and you have every right to defend your good name. Hope this thing blows over soon.
I find that those that feel that they are at a disadvantage (disenfranchised?) for one reason or another will raise the race or other bias card quite easily. Even if in a different situation, they exhibit similiar sentiments.
[...] While at Northern Voice, I read about a blogger named Ed Dunn who claimed TechCrunch Michael Arrington was snubbing his search engine service because he was African American. An allegation which Arrington swiftly and strongly refuted. [...]
Mike,
I think you might want to take a step back and ask yourself why Ed may have come to this conclusion. Look beyond the racism angle and ask why Ed feels you treat people unfairly.
I read your blog avidly, but have noticed something that could explain how Ed came to this conclusion. There does seem to be a certain ‘high school’ feel among some of the bloggers and the companies they choose to comment on.
It does seem that there is an element of exclusivity where there is an “in” crowd and the “out” crowd. This reminds me of high school. It also means the most interesting stuff isn’t getting out, which is why I read your blog and others in the first place.
I’m going to assume you are not a racist because I’ve never seen anything that would justify that accusation. However, I think you might want to ask yourself if you are really and open and inclusive as you think you might be.
I’m also not going to claim Ed is “crazy” because I think he is calling attention to something that is real even if it isn’t racism per se.
I’m not claiming malice. Sometimes we just fall into certain patterns without realizing how they impact others.
my 2 cents.
I read more of Ed Dunn’s blog and he has a chip on his shoulder against everybody, not just Michael Arrington. Here’s a link to his "Vent" category. The guy has declared some kind of personal war against VC’s & tech bloggers and he thinks that the SEO industry conspiring against him.
AC (a few comments above) and Eric Prebys,
The only racists here are the ones who call upon Mike to engage in self-reflection. Why don’t you go on Ed’s blog and slather him with your precious theories on communication breakdown? The fact that you address Mike and not Ed betrays condescention towards the latter.
Eric - you twist yourself into knots trying to imagine what Ed would say. Why don’t you write to him and ask him? You write - “Can the discussion go somewhere interesting without Ed?” Hell, Mike tried talking to him. You’re the one that holds in Ed in so little regard that you can’t grant him the respect of address. Instead you’d rather speak for him since you know better, right?
And to everyone else out there, I’m sorry for the comment. I know the horse is dead.
Gabe,
If you want to discuss this, then send me an email: eric@prebys.org. Otherwise, as you said, this horse is dead. The repeated comments about “race cards” continue to draw my attention, but I’ll have to take that up elsewhere.
[...] The CrunchNotes.com guy is not a racist. He is also not a communist. Well, I’m glad that’s all settled. [...]
Mike, I think you put yourself in these positions..
I think you make your life more stressful than it should be.
It’s time for the next post. My suggestion:
“I do NOT club baby seals. Anymore.”
Actually, all good comments and a worthy topic. Mike is definitely not a racist. And we shouldn’t be too hard on Ed either for venting his frustrations, albeit might have held back on his rush to judgement and accusations–what we need is better communication & senses of humor.
Can’t we all just blog along?
I’d try to call up the person and discuss serious issues like that over the phone instead of sending emails. Maybe I am oldfashioned.
http://www.lifehacker.com/software/email/email-tone-isnt-understood-as-much-as-we-think-152924.php
U
Don’t continue to cover him (sending him clicks and attention in the process). You cannot easily prove a negative. Just move on and let your record speak for itself. Jesse Jackson and others have played the race card to draw attention to themselves and raise money. MLK was right in envisioning a day when race didn’t matter. It shouldn’t, but race-baiters play keep playing the race card with wanton disregard for the facts just for the attention, don’t pay attention.
Eric, this is beyond the race issue and the initial accusations.. forget that. Anyone who writes “Simply put…Go fuck yourself clown” is not worth communicating with. Period.
You act like there is such a thing as the “race card”. Racism isn’t a game, it is as real and extremely evident watching the little that has been done post-Katrina. I would suggest not using the term “race card”.