Cartoonist’s rant draws criticism
Scott Adams, the creator of the internationally syndicated Dilbert comic strip, unleashed a racist rant last week on YouTube, saying Black people are a hate group and “I don’t wanna have anything to do with ’em” — a statement that is being met with condemnation, including the cancellation of his cartoons from the Houston Chronicle and other newspapers.
“The strip does not reflect our values or the content we want to provide to one of the most diverse communities in the country,” Houston Chronicle Editor Maria Reeve said.
Adams, a San Francisco Bay Area resident, made the offensive comments on his “Real Coffee with Scott Adams” video show, after erroneously concluding that a poll had found “nearly half of all Blacks are not OK with white people.” He was referring to a recent Rasmussen Reports survey of 1,000 American adults who were asked whether they agreed with the statement “It’s OK to be white,” a phrase the AntiDefamation League has labeled as hate speech.
Yet, according to Rasmussen, 72 percent of Americans agreed with the statement, including 53 percent of Black respondents. Twenty-two percent of Americans disagreed with the statement, including 26 percent of Black respondents.
“If nearly half of Blacks are not OK with white people — according to this poll, not according to me, according to this poll — uh that’s a hate group,” Adams said on his show. “That’s a hate group and I don’t wanna have anything to do with ‘em. And I would say the best advice I could give to white people is to get the hell away from Black people.”
“It makes no sense whatsoever as a white citizen of America to try to help Black citizens anymore,” he said. Adams furthered his offensive rant by saying that he escaped by living in a neighborhood with a “very low” Black population.
Adams’ rant was met with fury online. Actress Marsha Warfield shared the clip to her Twitter timeline, saying, “Because nothing is racist to a racist, or they’d have to admit they’re a racist.”
Gannett, which runs hundreds of local media outlets across the U.S. and publishes USA Today, announced Friday it would no longer publish the Dilbert strip because of “recent discriminatory comments” by its creator.
Dilbert was dropped over the weekend by the Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express News and Hearst Connecticut Media Group, which are owned by Hearst Communications.
“We believe strongly in upholding values that recognize the dignity of all our readers. The Dilbert strip and its creator have violated those core values,” Hearst leaders said in a prepared statement.
The San Francisco Chronicle and the Times Union stopped carrying “Dilbert” in October and January, respectively, after strips that — among other things — joked that reparations, proposed for African Americans because of slavery, can be claimed by underperforming office workers and that to get around efforts to diversify workplaces straight men should pretend they are gay.
“His strip went from being hilarious to being hurtful and mean,” said Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor in chief of the San Francisco Chronicle. “Very few readers noticed when we killed it and we only had a handful of complaints. We had many more complaints when we stopped other strips.”
Times Union editor in chief Casey Seiler said the response was similar in Albany. “The frequency of episodes in which we would have to replace strips with non-offensive reruns had been accelerating,” he said.
The editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer announced the paper dropped the Dilbert comic strip because of Adams’ rant. “This is a decision based on the principles of this news organization and the community we serve,” editor Chris Quinn said.
According to the Daily Beast, Adams’ comic was dropped from 77 newspapers by publisher Lee Enterprises in September. The comic, which has appeared in newspapers since 1989, once ran in as many as 2,000 newspapers in 70 countries and 25 languages.
Adams responded to the criticism on another episode of his online show Saturday. He said he had been making a point that “everyone should be treated as an individual” without discrimination and “you should absolutely be racist whenever it’s to your advantage.”
“But you should also avoid any group that doesn’t respect you, even if there are people within the group who are fine,” Adams said.
He has also continued to defend his remarks on Twitter, noting that he was getting “canceled.”