After defending comments that Black people are “members of a hate organization” that white people should “stay away from,” the author of the Dilbert comic strip was met with a storm of cancellations on Saturday.
Many media outlets in the United States condemned the remarks made by Scott Adams, the author of the comic strip Dilbert, as racial, hateful, and discriminatory while declaring they would no longer support his work.
The long-running comic strip Dilbert makes fun of workplace customs.
The uproar started after this past week’s edition of the YouTube program “Real Coffee with Scott Adams,” in which Adams discussed, among other things, a Rasmussen Reports poll asking respondents whether they agreed with the phrase “It’s Fine to be white.”
The majority concurred, according to Adams, while 26% of Black respondents disagreed, and some weren’t sure.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, the slogan was made well-known in 2017 as part of a trolling campaign by users of the discussion forum 4chan but later started to be used by some white nationalists.
Adams, who is white, constantly referred to persons who are Black as part of a “hate group” or a “racist hate group” and claimed he would no longer “assist Black Americans.”
On his Wednesday broadcast, Adams advised white people to “stay the heck away from Black people” because of how things are currently going.
In a subsequent broadcast of his web program Saturday, Adams said he had been arguing that “everyone should be treated as an individual” without prejudice.
Adams added, “But you should also avoid any group that doesn’t appreciate you, even if there are some wonderful people.
While announcing Saturday that Dilbert will end Monday in most issues and that its final run in the Sunday comics, printed in advance, will be March 12, the Los Angeles Times cited Adams’ “racist sentiments” as justification.
Hearst Newspapers’ San Antonio Express-News said on Saturday that it would discontinue running the Dilbert cartoon starting Monday “because of hostile and racist public comments by its creator.”
According to a Friday tweet from the USA Today Network, Dilbert will no longer be published “due to recent racist comments by its author.”
Also announcing their decision to discontinue Dilbert was The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and other organizations that are a part of Advance Local media.
Chris Quinn, the editor of The Plain Dealer, stated, “This is a choice based on the principles of our news company and the community we serve.” We do not welcome anyone who supports racism. Without a doubt, we do not wish to assist them financially.
NJ Advance Media’s vice president of content, Christopher Kelly, states that the news organization supports “the free and fair exchange of ideas.”
Yet a line must be set when such ideals turn into hate speech, Kelly added.
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