Dilbert and the Fight for Justice in the Cartoon Community
By: Margaret Chen
The “Dilbert” comic strips will no longer be printed by hundreds of newspapers after its creator’s racist rant during a YouTube livestream went viral.
Scott Adams, 65, is internationally known for “Dilbert,” a groundbreaking comic series that satires the workplace. First published in 1989, it was the first entertainment vehicle that made fun of absurdities found in the modern office culture, similar to popular TV series like The Office.
On his YouTube show “Real Coffee with Scott Adams,” Adams responded to a poll by Rasmussen Reports that revealed 53% of Black Americans agreed with the statement “It’s okay to be White.” He expressed his perspective on these findings: “If nearly half of all Blacks are not OK with White people – according to this poll, not according to me, according to this poll – that’s a hate group.”
Adams also added, “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, just get the f**k away … because there is no fixing this,” essentially promoting segregation.
However, what Adams and the public was missing was the history of the phrase: “It’s okay to be White.” In 2017, it was used to goad liberals into condemning the statement, and subsequently, prove their unreasonableness. The Rasmussen Reports organization itself has a history of amplifying conservative causes, such as alleging that the covid vaccine was causing deaths and that the 2020 (Biden vs. Trump) election was fraudulent. Furthermore, behavioral analyst Nicholas Valentino has said that “Anyone who did know the history of it [“It’s okay to be White”] or who had a suspicion about the history of it might react to that Rasmussen question with some skepticism and that wouldn’t be a sign that they didn’t like White people,” which directly contradicts the basis of Adams’ reasoning.
Since then, major news outlets such as The Plain Dealer, The USA Today Network, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The San Antonio Express-News and MLive Media Group, The New York Times, along with numerous others have released statements saying that they would end publication of “Dilbert.”
Adams is well known for the “extremist views and online provocations” he has expressed publicly in the past. In 2019, he used the shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival to promote his new app, tweeting:
“If you were a witness to the #GilroyGarlicFestivalshooting please sign on to Interface by WhenHub (free app) and you can set your price to take calls. Use keyword Gilroy. WhenHub.com.”
His tweet struck many as insensitive, eventually garnering over 1,300 comments. “Set your price” Adams had tweeted just hours after the tragedy. The price was the lives of a 6-year-old boy, a 13-year-old girl, and a 25-year-old biologist.
Although the cancellation of “Dilbert” is a step towards cultivating tolerance and combatting racism in journalism, the journey is far from over. As Darrin Bell (the first Black cartoonist to win a Pulitzer Prize) says, the growing tolerance for racism like Scott Adams’ is not uncommon in the cartoon community…
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/business/media/scott-adams-dilbert-gilroy.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/02/28/rasmussen-poll-scott-adams-dilbert/