Elon Musk defends racist comments of well-known cartoon creator
As if Elon Musk could not be more problematic, he came in defense of racist comments made by Dilbert cartoon creator Scott Adams on YouTube last week. Also, of course, he accused the US media of racism on Sunday.
Elon Musk and his questionable behavior and statements
This should not mean anything (but really, read between the lines), the Center for Countering Digital Hate and Anti-Defamation League report that there has been an influx of hate speech on Twitter since Elon’s takeover of the social platform in October.
The Twitter CEO tweeted that the media that used to be racist against non-whites is now “racist against whites & Asians”.
To give context, in the video, Scott Adams, who is white, said black Americans were part of a “hate group”. He continued by saying white people should “get the hell away” from them.
As they should, several US outlets dropped the cartoon over the weekend in response.
Continuing the same tweet, Elon continued to allege that “elite colleges & high schools in America” are also racist.
Scott and his successful career as the creator of Dilbert
Scott has been a mainstay of the funny pages of America’s newspapers since 1989. It features a put-upon office worker and a talking dog, who together take aim at the fads of the corporate culture.
Dilbert’s distributor is also severing ties with Scott, the company announced on Twitter. While Andrews McMeel Universal values free speech, the company said, they ”will never support any commentary rooted in discrimination or hate”.
— GoComics (@gocomics) February 27, 2023
The Wall Street Journal also reported that a new Dilbert book to be published in September was also dropped. On the other hand, one of Penguin Random House’s imprints, Portfolio, says it will not publish Scott’s upcoming book, Reframe Your Brain.
Scott, in response, says his career is destroyed and most of his income will be gone by next week. This comes after The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications dropped the popular cartoon.
Among media outlets to drop the Dilbert cartoon strip are the USA Today network, which operates dozens of newspapers across the US.
The root of Scott’s problematic statement
Scott, his cartoon work, and his comments, widely viewed as encouraging segregation, were created in response to a survey conducted by the firm Rasmussen Reports. Respondents were asked to agree or disagree with the phrase: “It’s OK to be white” which is believed to have emerged in 2017 as a trolling campaign. It has since been used by white supremacists.
Based on the poll, 53% of black respondents agreed with the statement. Subsequently, 26% disagreed and others were not sure. Scott in turn called those who disagreed with the phrase part of a “hate group”.
Scott said, as disturbingly problematic as it is, “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 because there is no fixing this.”
In The New York Times, Pulitzer Prize-winning black cartoonist Darrin Bell described Scott as a disgrace, but not unique. “His racism is not even unique among cartoonists.”
