Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic strip, went on a racist rant this week on his Coffee with Scott Adams online video show, and we will no longer carry his comic strip in The Plain Dealer.
This is not a difficult decision.
Adams said Black people are a hate group, citing a recent Rasmussen survey which, he said, shows nearly half of all Black people do not agree with the phrase “It’s okay to be white.”
“I would say, 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,” he says in the video.
He says a lot more in the video, mostly hateful and racist, all viewable on Youtube. It’s a staggering string of statements, all but certain to result in the loss of his livelihood. I hate to quote him at all, but I do so to dissuade responses that this is a “cancel culture” decision.
No, this is a decision based on the principles of this news organization and the community we serve. We are not a home for those who espouse racism. We certainly do not want to provide them with financial support.
Adams’ reprehensible statements come during Black History Month, when The Plain Dealer has been publishing stories about the work being performed by so many to overcome the damage done by racist decisions and policy.
We’re not the first newspaper to drop Dilbert. Last year, according to The Daily Beast, 77 newspapers published by Lee Enterprises dropped it after Adams introduced his first Black character, apparently to poke fun at “woke” culture and the LGBTQ community. We are part of Advance Local, and the leaders in all Advance Local newsrooms independently have made the same decision we did to stop running the strip. That includes newspapers in Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Alabama, Massachusetts and Oregon.
Unfortunately, for the next week or so, you’ll still see some Dilbert cartoons in our pages. The comics are printed in advance, and the Sunday, Wednesday and Sunday, March 5, sections are waiting to be inserted into the newspapers for those days.
Until we decide what to replace Dilbert with, you’ll likely see a gray box where it has been appearing.
We have a head start on a replacement, though. I wrote a column last month explaining why we were carrying Beetle Bailey, and many people wrote with suggestions for other comics we might publish. We’ll be happy to use those recommendations in choosing a comic for the space where Dilbert has appeared.
Adams has been producing Dilbert for three decades. For years the comic was considered a devastating, satirical commentary on workplace policies. In recent years, The Daily Beast says, Adams had gained attention for publicly embracing ridiculous right-wing conspiracies.