Newspapers Across the Country Drop 'Dilbert' After Scott Adams' Livestreamed Rant
Scott Adams, the creator of the cartoon “Dilbert,” has been dropped from multiple newspapers after he went on a racially charged rant on his YouTube show.
Adams began producing Dilbert in 1989 but has come under criticism in recent years for his controversial comments.
In a recent episode on his “Coffee with Scott Adams” podcast-type videos, Adams said that white people should avoid black people since, according to him, a large number of black people dislike white people.
Adams cited a Rasmussen poll that asked 1,000 U.S. adults about their opinion on the phrase “It’s okay to be white.”
Overall, the poll found that 72 percent of those surveyed agreed with the statement, including 53 percent of black people.
“Adding together that is 47 percent of blacks not willing to say ‘it’s okay to be white.’ That’s like a real poll. This just happened,” Adams said in his livestream.
He continued, “So I realized, as you know I’ve been identifying as black for a while, for years now, because I like to be on the winning team and I like to help.”
“I always thought if you help the black community, that’s sort of the biggest lever you can find the biggest benefit,” Adams said.
“But it turns out that nearly half that team doesn’t think I’m OK to be white,” Adams said, adding that the poll made him decide to “re-identify as white because I don’t want to be a member of a hate group.”
He went on to suggest that this racial divide is beyond fixing and that white people should avoid it by living in areas with a low black population.
“Based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from black people,” Adams said. “Wherever you have to go, just get away, because there’s no fixing this. This can’t be fixed. You just have to escape.”
“So that’s what I did. I went to a neighborhood where I have a very low black population because unfortunately there’s high correlation between the density, and this is according to Don Lemon by the way … he notes that when he lived in a mostly black neighborhood there were a bunch of problems that he didn’t see in white neighborhoods.”
“So I think it makes no sense whatsoever as a white citizen of America to try to help black citizens anymore,” since it “doesn’t seem like it pays off” and “the only outcome is I get called a racist,” Adams argued.
He eventually concluded his rant on the topic, saying towards the end: “So I resigned. I resigned from the hate group called black Americans.”
His remarks drew outrage from a number of news outlets, including cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer, who announced in a Friday Letter from the Editor that they would no longer feature Adam’s cartoon due to his comments, which they described as “reprehensible.”
“This is not a difficult decision,” Editor Chris Quinn wrote. “No, this is a decision based on the principles of this news organization and the community we serve. We are not a home for those who espouse racism. We certainly do not want to provide them with financial support.”
His comments were especially harmful because they came during Black History Month, Quinn said.
The outlet also noted that the move to drop Dilbert from newspapers across the country has grown significantly over the years.
According to Quinn, who cited The Daily Beast, 77 newspapers published by Lee Enterprises dropped Dilbert last year “after Adams introduced his first Black character, apparently to poke fun at ‘woke’ culture and the LGBTQ community.”
John Hiner of MLive reiterated this statement, saying that they have “zero tolerance for racism. And we certainly will not spend our money supporting purveyors of it.”
The outlet will be removing Dilbert within the next month and “will work quickly to find a replacement that will entertain you and not violate basic standards of decency and respect for others.”
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