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Whoa. Michael Arrington finds himself telling a critic, in public, that he's not a racist. Ed Dunn, creator of the search tool Fooky, has implied such.

The TechCrunch blogger gave Fooky a mildly positive review last fall, but Dunn felt he was being snubbed. Dunn never crossed the line until he recently accused Arrington of pushing biased publicity without disclosure. Sure, maybe it's true. But Dunn was just exploiting the flimsy WSJ blogger story. So Arrington asked — and here he may have screwed up — he asked Dunn not to read his site again. Yes, that is silly. But no, it wasn't a reasonable provocation for Dunn's next move.

The search builder laid out his angry argument: no one writes about Fooky because it's run by a black man. Not because, well, it's a weird product.

So that's why Michael Arrington wants you to know that he's not a racist. Or, as he spells it, a "rascist." That he never knew Dunn's race before Dunn brought it up. And surely Doc Searls, Steve Gillmor, Jon Udell, or another white friend will support him in this claim.

Dunn, you've almost got it right. But to get ahead in tech, you don't have to be white — you have to be Indian.

Update: Paul Scrivens says, "Mike Arrington loves black people."

I am not a racist [TechCrunch]
Fooky review [TechCrunch]
The Real Reason why Tech Media Snub Fooky [Dream and Hustle]