From what email in [1] on page 301: > There are a few blog posts--none of which are written by archivists or historians--that use circular, strawman arguments

From what email in [1] on page 301: > There are a few blog posts--none of which are written by archivists or historians--that use circular, strawman arguments to attempt to exculpate Webb of his involvement in the Lavender Scare. These arguments focus on misprints in non-peer-reviewed sources. These blog posts fail to engage any of the existing peer-reviewed historical research and archival evidence regarding the period that positions Webb in a leadership role regarding the LGBTQ firings as early as 1950. I would like to imagine that these bloggers have their hearts in the right place--that they aren't intentionally trying to erase LGBTQ history--and that their errors simply stem from their lack of training in historical and archival research. Well, these blog posts engage with the arguments made in major newspapers and articles, I don't think that's a "strawman argument" at all. If these arguments are bad then the fault is entirely with the people making the bad arguments, not the people replying to them. I don't really have the time – or interest – to dig deeper in the matter to find out if the gist of the email is correct or not (there's a lot of information and not everything is easily accessible), but I found this a very curious paragraph which needlessly and unfairly attacks people. Also not a huge fan of the credentialism and rather patronizing language. This makes it pretty hard to have honest respectful conversations, and in that sense the author of the email is "part of the problem" (that is, the problem it's so darn hard to have reasonable honest conversations about this).