More newspapers say they’re dropping the “Dilbert” comic strip after creator Scott Adams this week advised white people to “get the f–k away” from Black people.
Gannett, the biggest newspaper publisher within the US, has announced it’ll now not run the workplace comic “effective immediately” over remarks Adams, 65, made on his online show “Real Coffee with Scott Adams.”
“Recent discriminatory comments by the creator, Scott Adams, have influenced our decision to discontinue publishing his comic. While we respect and encourage free speech, his views don’t align with our editorial or business values as a corporation,” the USA Today Network of lots of of newspapers said in a press release Saturday to The Post.
“At Gannett, we lead with inclusion and strive to keep up a respectful and equitable environment for the various communities we serve nationwide.”
The Cleveland Plain Dealer also said it’s cutting ties with Adams following his “racist rant,” in addition to the Washington Post. The news comes five months after Lee Enterprises cut the cartoon from its newspapers because it scaled back its funny pages.
“This shouldn’t be a difficult decision,” Plain Dealer Editor Chris Quinn wrote Friday in his letter from the editor. “Adams said Black persons are a hate group, citing a recent Rasmussen survey which, he said, shows nearly half of all Black people don’t agree with the phrase ‘It’s okay to be white.’”
The Anti-Defamation League has noted that phrase was popularized on the web site 4chan in 2017 for trolling purposes and adopted by white supremacists as a “hate slogan.”
The Post reached out to Adams and Quinn for comment.
The hourlong YouTube clip was posted Wednesday, racking up 119,000 views on Adams’ channel, which has 118,000 subscribers.
“I might say, based on the present way things are going, the perfect advice I might give to white people is to get the hell away from Black people,” he stated.
Adams also said it doesn’t “make any sense as a white citizen of America to attempt to help Black residents anymore,” arguing that it’s “now not a rational impulse.”
“So I’m going to back off on being helpful to Black America since it doesn’t seem to be it pays off,” he said.
Quinn, within the letter, claimed the paper’s move to sever ties with Adams wasn’t a “‘cancel culture’ decision,” but fairly, “a choice based on the principles of this news organization and the community we serve.”
The Plain Dealer is a component of Advance Local, which holds newspapers in Staten Island, Latest Jersey, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Oregon and Alabama. The chain belongs to the media company founded by the powerful Newhouse publishing family.
In his letter, Quinn said the leaders of those publications had also decided “independently” to cancel the comic strip.
The Washington Post, meanwhile, said Saturday it has ceased publication of “Dilbert” “in light of Scott Adams’s recent statements promoting segregation.”
Adams doubled down on his beliefs Saturday on Twitter, writing, “A number of persons are indignant at me today but I haven’t yet heard anyone disagree.”
“I make two important points: 1. Treat everyone as a person (no discrimination). 2. Avoid any group that doesn’t respect you,” the tweet continued. “Does anyone think that’s bad advice?”
The comments rankled Twitter users, who called Adams a “racist” and argued he “canceled” himself.
Just last fall, “Dilbert” was stripped from around 80 newspapers owned by Lee Enterprises. Other comic strips were axed in addition to a part of the print revamp.
While Adams said he couldn’t prove it, he noted the termination occurred after he introduced “wokeness” into his office-centric cartoons.
“It was part of a bigger overhaul, I think, of comics, but why they decided what was in and what was out, that’s not known to anybody except them, I suppose,” Adams told Fox News on the time.
The artist last 12 months introduced a recent character, Dave, who’s Black, but identifies as white, which affects his employer’s diversity scores. Though publications fielded complaints from readers, Adams couldn’t confirm that’s what led to his comic strip’s termination from print pages.
“What I do is I speak about how the staff handle the [diversity] situation. It’s not in regards to the goal of it. But that’s enough to make people think that I should be taking sides politically,” he said on the time.
He admitted the cutbacks could be a “substantial” financial blow.
Because it was first published greater than three a long time ago, “Dilbert” has appeared in 1000’s of papers across the country and inspired merchandise and even a short-lived television series that aired from 1999 to 2000.
Adams claimed in 2020 the show was canceled because of him “being white.”
