So there have been some people who have been trying to malign this letter as somehow untoward. And there have been implications that one historian’s inclusion had been somehow faked. This couldn’t further from the truth. It’s sad to me that it comes to this.
Part of what we are fighting against, and that this incident painfully illustrates, is the insane pressure that comes to bear down on people for simply thinking for themselves. The pressure that makes a serious historian pretend she didn't sign a letter that she freely signed.
The insane pressure––which Malcolm Gladwell countered by saying he signed the letter precisely because of the principles and not the presence of likeminded signatories––that makes someone want to distance themselves from beliefs they do hold because someone else holds them too.
I do not believe there were any bigots on this list. But above all, I was raised to believe in what Bayard Rustin famously said: "If a bigot says to me, 'The sun is shining.' If the sun is shining, I say, 'Yes the sun is shining,' because I want to tell the truth."
Period.
Period.
