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On the “Scott Adams is a racist” controversy — 28 Comments

1. That’s my take as well. He had to know full well what would happen. He was just being far too reductive and absurd.

   As an aside, I wasn’t aware of that the Rasmussen poll only had 160 respondents. Until now I was only sort of half paying attention to the story and hadn’t dug deeper. And as we all know, these days you have to go out of your way to research every aspect of a story like this if you want to come to any sort of reasonable conclusion. But anyway… 160 is far, far too small a sample to conclude anything really.

2. Adams is neither conservative nor in any way “racist” (a term which, through brazen and hysterical overuse and abuse, has lost any real meaning), and he really does believe in judging his fellow citizens as individuals. It is likely that he was simply weary of the completely one-sided (leftist and black-nationalist) “conversation on race”, perhaps interested in “stirring the pot”, and certainly angry that the facts about this country’s interracial crime (almost entirely black-on-white or black-on-Asian) are never discussed truthfully in our mendacious and malevolent media, intent on fomenting racial division.

3. j e:

   I like that formulation: “our mendacious and malevolent media”. We have long been using Rush Limbaugh’s “Main Stream Media” (MSM). Perhaps it’s time to replace that with “MMM”.

4. He changed to state road media toward the end

   Dilbert was often about stupid or arrogant white people

5. Here in Abq “Dilbert” gets top billing in the Sunday paper. If a hundred or so papers cancel “Dilbert” that’s sizeable loss of income and influence. As I recall, it’s also jeopardized publishing a new “Dilbert” book.

   I hope Adams has a plan. He is been playing it close to the edge and the left has been gunning for him. He may have been a bit too clever this time.

   Of course, being canceled isn’t right. But there are times when it’s really not advisable to wear a short dress, even if that’s not how it should be.

6. Next thing you know a firearm will get involved.
   I never thought the Dilbert thing was worth reading.

7. huxley said, “But there are times when it’s really not advisable to wear a short dress, even if that’s not how it should be.”

   Sam Brinton should be advised not to wear long dresses (sorry, couldn’t resist).

8. The deal Adam’s has on distribution is probably less money than his locals at $5 a subscriber. And newspapers have been dying.

   The issue is rights to dilbert and to distribution, and who owns them.

   Most book authors get screwed by publishing houses, and make a lot more money going independent. With kindle it bypasses the need for a publisher and a minimum print run.

9. Scott Adams thinks of himself as a master of persuasion, and was drawn to Trump in 2015 over Trump’s persuasion skills and methods. His books and frequent postings are often interesting, if rather self-possessed. Since Covid and the breakup of his marriage, he has been more adventurous in his meanderings, but has built a bit of a cocoon world where he can be provocative and yet vague at the same time.

   This rant I assume he knew would result in his cancellation, and he undoubtedly has several moves planned beyond this point. Not so sure that it has and will turn out as he has anticipated. Personal isolation, online and podcasting complacency, and too much cannabis could be clouding his judgment. He won’t starve, and probably needs new challenges anyway.

10. Very little critique of the motives/actions of the newspapers wrt Adams, as compared to the “meh” response to the bombardment of ant-white statements that gush from the mouths and keyboards of certain politicians, journalists (for lack of a better word), academics, and purported entertainers. Not to mention the “President in name” of the United States who tried, in vain, to separate himself from all of the “stupid white boys”. I can’t say that I am surprised.

    I have loved Dilbert for years; but I have not particularly cared for Adams himself; what little I knew about him. Still, I abhor this latest manifestation of the highly discriminatory cancel culture.

    Guess I have been out of the loop, but until this episode broke, I did not realize that the rather benign assertion “it is ok to be white” was an indicator of White Supremacy.

    Associated thought: I wonder if there could be a market for SWB (stupid white boy) tee shirts and ball caps?

11. Green is incorrect on a material fact. The poll was of 1000 Black Americans, not 160 respondents. I have no idea where he pulled that number from.

12. Adams had blown his credibility with many on the vaccination fiasco, & his dodgy admission that he was wrong but logically right…or somesuch.

    This racial rant was an effort to claw back his 15 minutes. Streisand effect?
    Who knows…and I’m not sure I have any damns to give.

13. It is sad but true that if you are of a non-protected class (whites, males, Evangelicals, straights) your employment and life can be destroyed by the subjective feelings of someone from a protected class. As decent human beings, we’re called upon to grant each person their basic humanity. But sometimes the probabilities are just too dangerous. (The NY Times once, without an once of self-awareness, referred to the tension that results when a person’s personal perception of truth and the facts are at odds.)
    I find it interesting that I never hear of Orthodox Jews being caught in a publicity tornado for defending traditional marriage or finding homosexuality an unacceptable lifestyle.

14. Adams remarks fit in the tradition of John Derbyshire and Charles Murray.

15. Have any of you actually listened to the hour long podcasts by Scott Adams, which are posted on Youtube AND FULLY MONITIZED (i.e., Youtube sees no problem with what Scott is saying).
    Listen to Scott to get the full context. He knew that he would have a wave of cancellations, but has grasped the nettle and is pulling mightily at this weed that is destroying the comity of our nation.
    Devote the time to see what he is doing by listening to him.
    Learn something by listening to the last 5 podcasts— Scott has major skills that he is now employing to get the nation to work on real solutions to the problem that we all see but are fearful of stating out loud. Do not let others assign your opinion. I also suggest you listen to Hotep Jesus podcast with Scott.
    P,S, The mendacious and malevolent media are now calling him a “Holocaust Denier” simply because in one conversation he opined that is was difficult to know the number of Jews murdered by the Nazis (the number is updated again and again over time).

16. jvermeer:

    I have no idea what you’re talking about when you write, “I find it interesting that I never hear of Orthodox Jews being caught in a publicity tornado for defending traditional marriage or finding homosexuality an unacceptable lifestyle.” Nor do I know what a “publicity tornado” is, versus getting bad publicity. Perhaps you’re unaware of all the negative things said about Orthodox Jews, including in the Netflix series “Unorthodox”? Or all the NY Times coverage indicating that Orthodox Jews spread COVID and don’t care? Or are anti-vaxxers? (Neither is the case.) Or are misogynistic? Or have too many children? Or are homophobes?

17. Have any of you actually listened to the hour long podcasts by Scott Adams…

    Edward:

    I have and I liked them, but an hour is an hour, and five hours is even longer. I’d rather read a summary.

    (Besides I have French to learn! Maybe if Adams did his podcasts in French.)

    Here’s a link to his podcasts for those interested:

    https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy8xMjhkMDcyYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw

18. @ LeClerc > “Adams remarks fit in the tradition of John Derbyshire and Charles Murray.”

    Well, since you mentioned Derb —
    He also speculates that Adams may have been trying a humorous line, but muffed it because, well, the Left has no sense of humor.

    https://www.unz.com/jderbyshire/get-the-hell-away-from-black-people-what-i-think-about-scott-adams-version-of-the-talk/

    Scott Adams is the creator of the Dilbert comic strip, which has often raised a chuckle from me, and once or twice a guffaw. That aside, I know next to nothing about Scott Adams. I’m vaguely aware he has a social media presence—a vidcast, I think—but I’d never engaged with it…

    …until this week, when Adams came out as anti-anti-white. On the race issue, that’s the same position as mine; so I’ve been getting emails saying: “Hey, Derb, Scott Adams agrees with you!”

    Is that right? Here’s what the guy actually said.

    He gives a considerably longer excerpt from The Podcast Heard Round the Internet than most pundits have done, and makes a point about interpretation being in the mind of the beholder.

    The main thing to bear in mind here is that Adams is a humorist, always looking to raise a laugh. So how seriously should we take this?

    (I’m addressing that question to the dwindling number of Americans who still have a sense of humor in defiance of efforts by our Cultural Revolutionaries to stamp out humor altogether.)

    That business about identifying as black, for instance. Has Adams really been identifying as black? Well, he’s been saying he’s been identifying as black on Twitter for three years or so.

    That’s an obvious joke on transgenderism and transracialism. His comic strip once had a running joke about a black office worker who identified as white.
    …
    That aside, I didn’t think Adams’ remarks were very coherent. He read the poll as saying that, quote from him, “nearly half of all blacks are not OK with white people.”

    That’s not what the poll says. What it says is, that nearly half of all blacks are not OK with white people asserting their whiteness. Perhaps they just don’t like identitarianism of any variety.

    As I said, though, Adams is a humorist, so we shouldn’t apply fine logical analysis to what he said.
    …
    All that said, I welcome Scott Adams to the fellowship of the anti-anti-white, and I regret I haven’t paid much attention to him before, other than an occasional glance and chuckle at the Dilbert strip.

19. LordAzrael on February 28, 2023 at 9:14 pm said:
    “Green is incorrect on a material fact. The poll was of 1000 Black Americans, not 160 respondents. I have no idea where he pulled that number from.”

    Actually, not exactly.
    Here’s the Rasmussen Tweet (Derbyshire linked it).
    https://twitter.com/Rasmussen_Poll/status/1629246887718014976/photo/1

    There were 1000 respondents total.
    Blacks constituted 13%.

    Maybe Green meant 160 Black respondents, but he’s still off on the math.
    It is a very small sample, however.

20. Neo didn’t cite this final part of Green’s post — I think it confirms that Adams did indeed have a plan and wasn’t blind-sided by being cancelled because that was his objective.

    The key to unlocking any remaining mystery is right here in something Adams tweeted on Monday, hours after he released the Kraken: “Now that I have no anchor on my free speech, tomorrow will be fun.”

    I would suggest that he went with the obverse of the cliché “you can’t fire me, I quit” — in order to avoid the legal consequences of pulling the strips and merch himself, which would undoubtedly break some contracts, he has persuaded the people he wanted to stop doing business with to fire him.

    “Don’t throw me in that briar patch, Brer Fox!”
    (quoting another cancelled icon)

    He might even have grounds to sue them!

21. I thought this was a particularly good analysis of the poll itself, where Beaton makes a couple of points about the stats themselves being of the glass-half-full or glass-half-empty mode. He then throws some rocks at Rasmussen for asking ambiguous questions — which all of the pollsters do when the goal is clicks instead of useful information.
    (h/t Powerline)

    https://theaspenbeat.com/2023/02/28/dilbert-is-dead-killed-by-his-creator/

    Here’s the scene of the crime. Rasmussen is a political polling company. In the lull after the 2022 midterms and before the 2024 general election, they had some time to kill. And could use a few clicks.

    They found some. Last week they released the results of a poll posing the question:

    Do you agree or disagree with this statement: “It’s OK to be white.”

    Rasmussen reported that 72% of those polled – of all skin colors – agreed with that statement.

    Among Blacks, too, most agreed that it’s OK to be white but the percentage was lower. Some 42% strongly agreed and another 11% somewhat agreed. About 18% said they strongly disagreed and 8% said they somewhat disagreed. About 21% said they were not sure.

    If you take out the “not sure” category, 53% of Blacks agreed strongly or somewhat that “it’s OK to be white” while 26% disagreed strongly or somewhat. More than twice as many agreed as disagreed.

    Enter the murderer. The creator of the Dilbert comic strip, Scott Adams, picked up on the poll, as Rasmussen undoubtedly intended people to, ran off a cliff with it, and splattered spectacularly. In a Twitter storm, he lumped the 21% of not sure Blacks with the 18% of Blacks who disagreed strongly and the 8% who disagreed somewhat. Then in a bit of sophistry, he concluded that “add them together, that’s 47% of Black respondents [who] were not willing to say it’s OK to be white.”

    But of course a different bit of sophistry – no less valid – would lump the 21% of Blacks who were not sure if it was OK to be white with the 42% of Blacks who strongly agreed that it was and the 11% who somewhat agreed. Then you could state “add them together, that’s 74% of Black respondents who were not willing to say it’s not OK to be white.” That 74% comprised nearly three-quarters of the Black respondents.

    But that wouldn’t have fit Adams’ narrative. His narrative called for a glass of Black-on-white racism half full rather than three-quarters empty.
    …
    I’ve always liked Dilbert, both as an irreverent poke at corporate America and as an imaginary person. But Adams was a fool with an ax to grind. Most people have never heard of Adams, but they know Dilbert well. They now see Dilbert as the one with a bloody ax in his hand.

    The result is that Dilbert is canceled. For a cartoon character, that’s the same as being dead. It was Adams who killed him.

    I blame Rasmussen just as much, or more. Because they knew better. The phrase “it’s OK to be white” is much like “Black Lives Matter.” In both cases, no decent human would disagree with the substance of the phrase – it is indeed OK to be white and Black lives do indeed matter.

    But both phrases are freighted with much more than their literal meaning. I certainly believe that Black lives matter, but if I were asked whether I agree with the statement “Black Lives Matter” it’s difficult to put aside the violence, race-baiting, corruption and divisiveness of groups that banner themselves with that statement-turned-slogan.

    Similarly, “it’s OK to be white” has become not a truism but a badge. It’s been adopted to some extent by white supremacists and others hostile to ordinary decency. It’s still OK to be white, mind you, but the slogan “it’s OK to be white” is inflammatory in a similar way as “Black Lives Matter.” It’s often intended to be.

    Better phrases would be “Black and White lives matter” and “it’s OK to be Black or White.”

    Finally, Rasmussen’s poll was very poorly worded in a technical sense. Study the question presented above. A white person hearing the question is likely to believe he’s being asked if it’s OK that he and other whites are, or behave, white. Most white people would answer yes. (But take a moment to consider the derangement of the ones who answered no.)

    But a Black person may well interpret the question to be asking whether it’s OK for him and other Black people to be, or behave, white – whether it’s OK for Blacks to reject their blackness. I can see where many Black people would believe it’s not, either strongly or somewhat, or would answer that they’re “not sure” because the question is ambiguous and no context is given.

    The conclusion that the question was not interpreted by Blacks in the way Rasmussen presents, is supported by their responses to another question presented to the same respondents in the same poll. In the other question, respondents were asked:

    Do you agree or disagree with this statement: “Black people can be racist, too.”

    Among all respondents, 79% agreed strongly or somewhat with that statement, and among Blacks 66% agreed strongly or somewhat. Adams’ conclusion that nearly half of Blacks think it’s not OK to be white is inconsistent with Blacks’ answer apparently showing that two-thirds of them think Black animus toward whites is racist.

    Rasmussen of course knew all about the flaws in their poll. They conducted the poll not to generate light, but heat. They wanted clicks, and they got them. That the results would be misinterpreted or racially divisive was a feature, not a flaw – that’s the raw material from which clicks are manufactured.

    It’s not surprising, I suppose. Rasmussen is a media outlet, albeit a particular type as a pollster. In a cultural sense, media outlets are ax murderers.

22. Jeff Charles (who is black) also addressed the poll numbers directly, and adds some serious observations.
    https://redstate.com/jeffc/2023/02/27/who-says-its-not-okay-to-be-white-n709411

    To give you the shortened version, Rasmussen polled 1,000 people, only 130 of whom were black. If you do the math, 47 percent of 130 adds up to a whopping 61 black Americans. If you think 130 black folks somehow represent the attitudes of the more than 40 million African Americans in the country, I have some prime beachfront property in Montana to sell you on the cheap.

    Moreover, what many don’t know is that the phrase “it’s okay to be white,” was originated by bonafide white supremacists about five years ago. Of course, this does not mean any person who says that in 2023 is a white supremacist or even a racist. But many black people know where that phrase came from which could have also skewed the results, even on that paltry sampling of African Americans.

    I have been black for 42 years, with the exception of the years after I didn’t vote for Joe Biden. I can tell you most of us don’t have white people on the mind as much as the hard left would have you think.

    Not even Taylor Swift.

    But this does not mean the issue does not remain. Progressives, in all their wisdom, have villainized “whiteness” and especially white Christian males. It’s an integral component of their ideology and they have been spreading it in universities, the military, and several other major institutions.

    While this poll elicited anger among some conservatives against that supposed 47 percent, the conversation got me thinking: Don’t they see who is actually spreading this “White Man Bad” nonsense?

    I’ll give you a hint. It’s not us.

    That’s right, it’s our good friends, the virtue-signaling white progressives who bend over backward to make sure everyone knows how deeply they despise other less-melanated folks who don’t adhere to the tenets of their Marxist orthodoxy. It is the Robin DiAngelos of the world that are responsible for the bulk of the anti-white rhetoric coming from the far left. Sure, there are some black progressive faces on networks like MSNBC who spout that folderol. But who do they work for?

    You guessed it: White progressives.

    But black progressive tap dancers aside, it is critical that conservatives realize who their true enemy is. It ain’t black people, folks. It’s the white progressives who enjoy exploiting us to score cheap political points against people like yourself.

    If conservatives want to win, the conversation among right-leaning circles should center on going after the white progressives who believe themselves superior to you, not the black population. That will be a different discussion for a different day. But the bottom line is that you cannot win a war when you do not understand who your enemy is and how they work. This poll was nothing more than a distraction that fomented useless outrage on the right. Nevertheless, if conservatives keep their eyes on the real enemy, and employ better tactics when tackling issues of race, they might just have a chance to come out of this victorious.

23. I suspect that Adams has decided to—boldly, courageously—climb up on the ramparts and point out—shout out—just how ABSURD the Progressive-instigated racial hysteria has become, this in an effort to enable people to first recognize the absurdity, and then, one hopes, “educate” (shame?) them into concluding that it is absolutely necessary for the sake of EVERYONE to reassess this suicidal hysteria.

    In doing this, Adams may be emulating the model of Elon Musk’s heroism—perhaps—but he must certainly know that he has placed himself in a very vulnerable position. Perhaps he believes that his “humorist” background may shield him, but if so he is mistaken (look at what happened to Dave Chappelle); and he will have to show quite a bit of backbone, which I have no doubt he will do.

    Nonetheless, in vociferously pointing out the ABSURDIT of the Left, he seems to have forgotten that the Left, swimming in a SEA OF ABSURDITY, will not recognize it; moreover, the hysteria that the Left—especially its media—provokes serves to block out ANY sense of understanding, of self-recognition, of even LOOKING and/or SEEING what is truly going on.

    OTOH, if the Left will not see it, maybe others less devoted to hysteria and mindless blindness will.
    Still, he may well end up only preaching to the choir, as it were.

    Good luck to him (he’ll be needing it).
    And to us….
    – – – – – – – – – – – –
    + Bonus:
    Sharing some “Good News”….
    Manchin continues to step up—
    https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/dem-sen-manchin-joins-republican-efforts-thwart-esg-investing-federal-funds
    Another GOP win—
    https://justthenews.com/government/congress/gop-withstands-democrat-attempts-protect-government-censorship-power-house-bill
    The truth about “Biden” ‘s “Student Forgiveness Scam”—
    https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/tax-expert-says-biden-student-loan-forgiveness-plan-was-just-bribe-get-votes
    https://reason.com/volokh/2023/02/28/thoughts-on-todays-supreme-court-student-loan-forgiveness-oral-arguments/
    Footloose Lori Lightfoot Loses—
    https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/paul-vallas-projected-make-chicago-mayor-runoff-lightfoot-trails-bid-keep-office
    And this on Musk’s talents for survival in the “inhospitable” environment of the “Biden” shark tank—
    https://donsurber.substack.com/p/how-musk-survives

24. South Africa–

    If you want to see what comprehensive societal collapse looks like, take a look at this compilation of evidence at

    https://twitter.com/k9_reaper/status/1630436052723720193

25. Snow on Pine wrote: South Africa–
    “If you want to see what comprehensive societal collapse looks like, take a look at this compilation of evidence at …”

    For someone who once lived in South Africa, loved it, and seriously considered retiring there, this is shocking. My friends there have verified to me that everything in this thread is accurate, and it saddens me. What the “colonizers” built on the southern tip of Africa had to be seen to be believed, and I was fortunate to experience it before the collapse. The slow decay was visible even then, but the country still worked and its beauty and wonderful quality of life still evident. All of my South African friends are encouraging their children and grandchildren to emigrate, to leave their homes and leave behind parents and grandparents because they’ve given up the hope that the collapse can be reversed, and that it heartbreaking.

26. All of my South African friends are encouraging their children and grandchildren to emigrate, to leave their homes and leave behind parents and grandparents because they’ve given up the hope that the collapse can be reversed, and that it heartbreaking.

    Mugabe begged Lord Soames, who was the last British governor, to stay when the British left and Rhodesia became Zimbabwe. Mugabe knew he could not rule that country successfully. When Lord Soames died, Mugabe, even though he was banned from Britain, snuck into the country to attend his funeral. That, of course, was a different time.

27. I love that Reagan quote. If John Wayne said it, it would go like this:”Never explain, Mister! It’s a sign of weakness.”

    I had the same sense that Scott Adams was spiking syndication for some reason.

28. I wouldn’t express myself as Adams did, only because I won’t extend a uniform treatment to any class of people on the basis of what 53% of them exhibit in a poll. That’s the error of racism, in my book: the failure to treat people as individuals on the basis of their actual characteristics rather than the characteristics I insist on attributing to them. By this standard, there is of course anti-white racism just as there is anti-everything-else racism.

    I realize the fad now is to confine racism to situations involving a historical imbalance of power, and naturally there is a special concern about racism in that context. Nevertheless, the overall human misery from the error of rigidly projecting unreal characteristics onto living, breathing humans is so much more important to me that my number priority is to avoid it, power imbalances or no.

    I absolutely reserve the right to refuse to have much to do with anyone–of any color or professed socio-political beliefs–who self-identifies as incapable of learning this lesson.

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