Petition asking the APA to issue a statement of support of Emory's George Yancy

The petition is here.  Briefly:  Prof. Yancy wrote about racism at the New York Times blog, and has since been subjected to disgusting racist abuse and threats through e-mail and other social media.  I gather the APA is going to issue a statement of support.  I confess I'm not really sure what the point is here.  Every civilized person is appalled at the outbursts of racist, misogynistic and/or criminal abuse that follow any public statement that offends some segment of the deranged population.  Anyone who airs such views in cyberspace has been a victim of this kind of abuse, though the worst is typically reserved for women and minorities in my experience.  As I advised elsewhere, Prof. Yancy, like anyone else targeted by such garbage, should report criminal threats to law enforcement (I always do, and the University of Chicago police have often been helpful, usually in confirming that the threats are the idle malice of irrelevant cranks).   But I confess I'm at a loss as to the point of an APA statement on the matter:  the vile and often sociopathic people who send these hateful messages are not going to be at all affected by an APA statement, if they even learn of it.  There are many ways to express solidarity and sympathy with Prof. Yancy's predicament, quite apart from the APA statement.  Unlike the situation in Turkey, in which the state is the malevolent actor but also sensitive to reputational costs, it's just not clear to me what will be accomplished by an APA statement in this instance.   Since this is another issue pertaining to the role of the APA, I wonder what readers think?