‘Dilbert’ dropped by The Post, other papers, after cartoonist’s racist rant | Hacker News Reader

‘Dilbert’ dropped by The Post, other papers, after cartoonist’s racist rant

washingtonpost.com

49 pointsAloha91 comments

There have been several recent threads including one that got a lot of comments https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

I wish all the people who just want to stir shit up on HN would pack up and go to another site. This does not belong here, glad it got flagged.

I'd agree except that Dilbert cutouts have been tacked to cubicle walls in the tech community for decades. Finding out that your workplace art is now controversial has some value.

Except most of the horrible comments are coming from team antifa

He’s been baiting this for years. I guess he thinks there is more money to be made whining about being cancelled.

He might also just literally be insane.

I would bet on that.

https://twitter.com/waltisfrozen/status/1559938511234428929?...

he thinks there is more money to be made whining

I'm pretty sure he doesn't think that. He's mad, not stupid.

Also he likely has FU money by this stage.

Why do you say he isn't stupid?

I very much doubt there's any significant amount of money to be made being this controversial - especially when compared to the alternatives of just not saying anything and collecting royalties. Or saying appropriate stuff.

I see Scott Adams on Twitter sometimes, despite not following him. The man seems depressed and unhinged. His wife left him, he says the best part of his day is talking to his AI voice thing (Alexa?). I'd bet he's depressed and breaking down. I doubt he needs money.

If you think at all that a Black american celebrity would be cancelled for saying to stay away from White people, I think would be celebrated, or atoeast tolerated.

The racial tension Adams exposes are terrible, and the wrong direction for repairing the country. But let's not pretend that this was ever fair.

Black separation is celebrated by the left, White separatism is condemned. As usual, they have no sense of hypocrisy.

It's not so much that we like what Adams said, but we just find the double standards too much to bear.

Is this the right way to expose that hypocrisy though? If his goal was to truly bring society together and eradicate hate, I'm sure someone as smart as Adams could expose it in a more amicable and less polarizing way.

It isn't, and it's unfortunate. It plays into--rather than healing--racial tension.

> If you think at all that a Black american celebrity would be cancelled for saying to stay away from White people, then you havent paid attention. It would be celebrated.

Are there prominent examples? Kanye West is one star who has dimmed significantly after making some racist remarks.

Nick Cannon had some awful remarks: When you have a person that has the lack of pigment, the lack of melanin, they know that they will be annihilated,” Cannon explained on his “Cannon’s Class” podcast. “So the people that don’t have [melanin] are—I’mma say this carefully—are a little less...They’re acting out of fear. They’re acting out of low self-esteem. They’re acting out of a deficiency. So, therefore, the only way they can act is evil.”

He got fired, but is now rehired. The firing was basically because his comments about Jewish people. Most outlets ignored what he said about people with white skin.

Those are still consequences. If people of color are given more slack for racist comments it could be because they're perceived as punching up, whereas white people would be considered punching down. Whites are the majority and certainly control more money and political power in the US.

Kanye West's remarks were anti-Semitic though, not anti-white. You're allowed to make anti-white remarks.

https://archive.is/KJKR8

> Asked to comment in more detail about his remarks and the mass cancellations, Adams initially declined. He later told The Post in a text message: “Lots of people are angry, but I haven’t seen any disagreement yet, at least not from anyone who saw the context. Some questioned the poll data. That’s fair.”

Does the article contain a link to the video? I don't see it, but I'm curious to see how context saves the kind of things the article claimed was being said.

I think this is the video you're looking for https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6TnAn7qV1s&t=802s

Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6TnAn7qV1s&t=816s

We're supposed to watch that and pretend that it is a "racist rant".

It's ignorant, and segregationist, and certainly after skipping around his videos the guy is clearly a nutjob, but it's odd that this is what sparked all the outrage. Is this really the worst thing he's said?

Nah, he's been going at it for ages, just in more subtle words. I guess this is the first time he said some things directly enough and as you said, being openly ignorant of real issues.

I'm pretty sure he said he was proud of his step-son for killing himself since the only 2 ways to deal with mental health issues in America are suicide and school shootings.

That man sure has opinions.

edit : I got it slightly wrong, he's saying parents of people with mental health issues have two choices : killing their own kids or watch people die

Somehow that's worse

https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/154467951067458764...

Wait. You're saying that he's being ignorant and segregationist, for not wanting to spend time with people who don't think it's okay for him to be the race he was born as? That's absurd.

It is okay to be white. It is okay to be black. It is okay to be any race, creed, color, sex, or orientation. Anyone who says otherwise is a bigot. And no, it isn't segregationist not to want to spend time with people who are bigoted toward you.

No; It's not okay. All those you listed are humans, and humans are bad. Praise Gaia.

Because a minority of black people responded negatively to a poll question about a racist, dog whistle phrase, Adams now considers black people a hate group. And he recommends white people avoid black people.

Sounds like segregation to me.

He said that he identified as black until he read the poll, which made him turn back to identifying as white. I'm... struggling... to interpret that any way that's not ignorant at best.

You are misrepresenting what he said. He said he wants to avoid all black people not just the subset of black people that he's flimsily accusing of holding racist beliefs.

> And no, it isn't segregationist not to want to spend time with people who are bigoted toward you.

26% of black people who responded to one poll said they disagreed with "It's okay to be white" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_okay_to_be_white).

His reaction to this, was to say that all white people should avoid all black people. This one poll is not evidence that all black people are bigoted toward all white people. It's not even evidence that all 26% of the people who disagreed with a inane 4chan prank endorsed and spread by white supremacists are bigoted toward all white people.

Major press outlets have called it a racist rant. Wikipedia will likely do so also, citing those major press outlets. Therefore, it is a racist rant.

The following is an actual quote from the stream:

Scott Adams: "the best advice I would give to White people is to get the hell away from Black people"

That is not "racist rant" to you?

It would help to put it in context.

He basically referenced some poll that asked black people if "it's ok to be white". And half said "no".

So he said "that's a hate group"

And said "the only solution is to get away from people [black people] who hold those views"

Classic. What's the context for the poll? You're giving one party the benefit of the doubt but not the other.

There is no context to that poll. That's the whole question. I was hoping there's more, but it looks like it was just done to create controversy and attention. It's a meaningless (yet loaded with subtext) question that the author had to realise will do what it did. And people like Scott can grab onto that and cause more havoc on top with a side of some ignorant spicy takes.

I'm not making any claims about the accuracy of the poll results because I have no idea how it was conducted, but the question "Do you agree or disagree with this statement: 'It’s OK to be white.'?" is certainly not meaningless even if it's loaded. There is a very unambiguously correct answer to that statement and if there is a population with a significant amount of people answering "no" that clearly demonstrates something problematic about current public attitudes and race relations.

I agree, it's only unambiguously correct in vacuum with no social context. Unless you control for what possible extra meaning can be assigned or implied here, it's a terrible poll - that's why I called it meaningless (as a poll question). If that one doesn't resonate for some people, let's try some other examples that should have unambiguously correct answers: "Is it ok to say gay?", "Is it ok to be a proud boy?", "Is it ok to support uniformed workers?", "Is it ok to love children?", etc. Now add the actual social context you're thinking of... Are they still unambiguous?

A more meaningful one would be "do we still have issues with racism?" without a gotcha approach. (That the poll creator did not acknowledge)

>it's only unambiguously correct in vacuum with no social context No it's not, lol. There is quite literally no social context where objecting to someone's given race is the correct moral choice.

"it's okay to be white" is a troll that originated on 4chan. In that context yeah you can disagree with the phrase.

That actually doesn't at all justify disagreeing with the phrase. Having a problem with a 4chan troll campaign is a different issue (and one I suspect most people have little to no knowledge of). This can very easily be likened to BLM. It's ok to not fully agree with the organization/movement but to disagree with the phrase "black lives matter" is simply wrong.

The question is a racist dog whistle. Knowing that I'd hesitate to answer in the affirmative even as a Caucasian. I'd probably decline to continue with the poll.

Yeah, if all they had to choose from was a simple 'yes I agree' or 'no I don't agree' refusing to answer is the right move. Some answers need further explanation or else a lot of people will misunderstand you.

Yes, but you have to realize that is you and other people will react or think differently - and you're starting to get at why this compromises the poll entirely.

I think you need to get off the internet for a little while. The world does not revolve around 4chan memes, and the phrase "it's okay to be white" does not signal that someone is secretly a racial supremacist.

Are we cancelling the people who made the poll? Are we cancelling and calling those who said yes racist? No. We're cancelling the person who said stay away from people who said that because it might offend those people?

Seems to make 2023 sense. The era of ignorance and racism.

> We're cancelling the person who said stay away from people who said that.

Factually wrong. He is saying to stay away from "Black people" in the abstract. It is plainly racist and there is no redeeming context in the video.

Redeeming? I thought that was a weird choice of words bar to set. So this person's video wasn't able to save you or people from sin.

"able to save people from sin, error, or evil" (oxford dictionary)

Calling his reaction plainly racist when the entire thing is highly racist is being dishonest with yourself and this conversation. The redeeming part of this video is calling out people who ignore racism when it suits them and point fingers when it doesn't. Racist publisher creates survey you ignore. Survey shows about 1/2 black population is racist. You ignore. Crazy guy says stay away from black people.. you call him racist. Same story but half of whites surveyed are racist against black. Would you have ignored it? Are you part of the problem or solution?

This is a lot of mental gymnastics over a simple point I was making. The post I was responding to falsely claimed that Adams was suggesting people stay away from only those Black people that allegedly held racist beliefs. I was merely pointing out that this was factually incorrect by highlighting that Adams was clearly talking about Black people in the abstract rather than only singling out Black racists.

Widen your len. They literally have produced the most racist survey that showed half the people responded in a racist way and you want to call out the person reacting to it? You want to call me out? Because he didn't qualify it by saying only the black people who responded when he prefixes the entire thing by telling you about the survey so you know who he referring to.

What is the point you are trying to make? That you are defending racist people by calling others racist for them.. and you are an ally to racism?

Criticizing racism isn't automatically anti-racist. You seem to be assuming that it is, such that pinning the racism tag on the poll absolves Adams. This is fallacious.

It's not a good thing that the academic zeitgeist can be racist without suffering repercussions or even much self-criticism, but the right answer is to hold the line of anti-racism rather than jumping into the cesspool and partaking in one's own racist rants.

You can't selectively hold the line. By letting some through you negate your neutrality. Your outrage needs to be broader or it becomes hollow.

I can't figure out how you're getting "let some through" from what I said. In fact that seems to be exactly what you are doing by defending Adams's racist rant because it happened to be calling out other racism. It's possible to call out the original racism without going on a racist rant yourself, and if you want to be anti-racist that is what you need to do - otherwise one is just being a different flavor of racist.

> What is the point you are trying to make?

I have made the point twice already. You said something factually incorrect. I explained why it was factually incorrect. That's all.

> There is no context to that poll. That's the whole question. I was hoping there's more

There is some context for the poll, or at least for that one question, and I think it's safe to assume that at least some of the people answering would be aware of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_okay_to_be_white

Nuance in phrasing. We're in agreement I think. There's context to the phrase, but the poll itself provides no context or further explanations for the question.

> And half said “no”

A “thin majority” said yes per the article. Disclaimer: I haven’t seen the actual poll numbers.

If he was trying to make some comedic social commentary, he should’ve aimed at the poll question itself. Our society is too polarized to find the nuance and if he didn’t understand that then he was overconfident in his market value as a cartoonist.

Essentializing all members of an ethnic group, many of whom have nothing to do with what you're accusing them of, is the definition of racism.

Right, which the original poll highlighted too "it's not ok to be white".

It’s basically one group characterizing another group who is characterizing the first group.

It’s just people with too much time on their hands yelling at each other.

Its not important and most people would improve their mental health if they just avoided all the drama.

The problem with the internet is that it gives anyone a voice and people who hear that voice assume it's important.

> So he said "that's a hate group"

If you think saying that Black Americans are a "hate group" is context that makes him seem less racist, you're wrong.

Unfortunately there is a segment of the population which doesn’t see *anything* as racist unless it involves white hoods and burning crosses and even then they would want the “context” of the burning cross before they could make any determination. If Scott Adams saying white people should avoid black people doesn’t check that box for them, almost nothing will.

Encouraging white flight isn't racist?

Of course it is, since there's no such thing; Melanin-challenged humans are pink, not white, and no humans can fly without technological assistance.

> Of course it is, since there's no such thing; Melanin-challenged humans are pink, not white, and no humans can fly without technological assistance.

:slowclap:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight

That wikipedia entry is racist: Identifying one part of humanity by an immutable characteristic, and judging them for it, is the definition of "discrimination".

TIL Dilbert's creator streams on YouTube...

Considering his career is basically over either way, print is dead, maybe this is working as intended? That whole "no such thing as bad publicity" thing...

I sure as hell wouldn't have watched any of his drivel today if not for this controversy bringing it to my attention.

AFIAK He was already dropped last year from the papers for other similar incidents, now his video channel was dropped. His young trophy wife left him, and he announced his suicide for this year.

I dont actually understand the question.. what does "Is it ok to be white" mean?

It was a troll campaign racists glommed on to, so now it's a dogwhistle.

https://www.adl.org/resources/hate-symbol/its-okay-be-white

Rasmussen Reports is known for its slight average conservative bias. Given the poor design of the poll, this is an outlier where it's worse than slight. This veers off into what I have to assume is intentional red meat for an increasingly radical base.

A generic phrase that is obviously true at face value has been declared "trolling" and everybody just agrees to concede it? And blame people who utter it? Is it OK to just lose language territory so easily? I am not American and this seems rather absurd to me.

It's not a generic phrase. It's an obscure phrase no one really thought about outside hardcore racist circles until it was picked up by trolls and embraced up by more average racists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_okay_to_be_white

>> "The suggestion for the use of posters with the saying originated on the message board /pol/ of 4chan, with the intent of provoking reactions. The saying was later spread by neo-Nazi groups and politically organized white supremacists, including former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke and The Daily Stormer.[4] A report by the Anti-Defamation League states that the phrase itself has a history within the white supremacist movement going back to 2001 when it was used as the title of a song by a white power music group called Aggressive Force as well as fliers with the phrase being spotted in 2005 and the slogan being used by a member of the United Klans of America.[1]"

>> "I am not American and this seems rather absurd to me."

Racism here is not like most other places, so your struggling to believe it is understandable. It should be absurd and unthinkable, but it's our messed up reality.

"okay to be white" is a far-right cry. It is almost like saying white power and certainly is meant to be more charged than "all lives matter."

Of course many black people will think negatively of a phrase that is designed to upset that demographic.

Ridiculous. At least print is dead anyway.

Scott Adams is a smart guy who’s been going in this direction for years (not just since Trump). His comic centered on seeing through bullshit and you can’t write a comic like that for as long and as successfully as he has without seeing through some bullshit yourself.

Since this was very predictably going to happen sooner or later, presumably he has already made arrangements for his financial security in the event of being cancelled. He is quoted as saying “I’m ruined”, which (knowing Scott) is equally likely to be the truth or be a clever manipulation - let them believe it worked so they move on.

I'm not so sure this outcome was so inevitable. Fame and riches do offer some buffer to mistakes, yet this one comes across as epic.

He's calling black people a hate group, and based on some flimsy 'evidence'. That's a big red line for anyone to cross, IMO at least.

A hazard of "seeing through bullshit" is that you eventually come to take the perspective for granted, think you have some innate ability to do so rather than the continual uphill battle it is, get complacent, and then end up getting stuck in a different reality distortion field.

The same dynamic is at play with all of these US-focused anti-imperialists who had spent decades seeing through the US's bullshit, but then end up getting totally taken in by Russian imperial bullshit because it's familiarly anti-US.

Even compared to normal society, HN seems to have a complete blind spot for any sort of performative behaviour on both sides of ‘cancel culture’.

The recent thread on all the ‘censorship’ of Dahl’s books made that incredibly evident. Plenty of people here seem so excited to point out any overreach by pearl-clutching modern progressives that they can’t differentiate legitimate pearl-clutching from someone (in that case, Dahl’s estate / the publisher) performing a poor imitation because they themselves are scared of the mob.

And then on the other side, people seem unable to differentiate between a run of the mill cancelling, someone manufacturing their own cancelling because it’d suit their narrative, and someone legitimately becoming increasingly unhinged and deranged.

> they can’t differentiate legitimate pearl-clutching from someone (in that case, Dahl’s estate / the publisher)

The 'woke edits' (for want of a better term) at the direction of the publishers on behalf of the estate (their client) was the furtherest thing from legitimate pearl clutching possible.

They (both parties) wanted to make money, they released a new edition, and they made their PR releases to highlight the changes made to "make Dahl better" (for a new and more woke audience).

That's not pearl clutching, that's just marketing .. and worse very likely deliberately manipulative in order to reach eyeballs via contraversy.

What was the end result of that?

Double payout!!

They have apologised for the sin of altering Dahl and are re-releasing 'Original Dahl' - so they are making bank from both their new revision edition and from a new release of old editions for all the outraged new self declared Dahl fans that want only the original works with the enormously fat descriptors.

Dahl's My Uncle Oswald would have loved the marketing here.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com