When controversy erupts within our community, we need to not be so quick to eat our own. Early on there were many ill considered calls for boycotting Remington, even though they merely got an incidental mention from Zumbo. I think putting pressure on Outdoor Life was appropriate, but I have to admit I’m somewhat disappointed that Outdoor Life has responded by taking the Zumbo Blog down.
While I think that Zumbo’s statments were assenine, and the apology not quite enough to make up for the damage somegthing like that can do to us, I pretty strongly look down on trying to erase history. You can’t take stuff back on the Internet. That’s why we’re so angry about this.
I don’t want to see Zumbo lose his writing job, or have his blog taken down, because, as much as I’m upset over his statements, I genuinely believe they were based completely on ignorance, rather than on malice. Let Zumbo continue his blog. In the coming days, we can see where his heart really is on the issue. We’ve given him his baptism by fire into the blogosphere, and now let’s see which side he’s really on.