Scott Adams, cartoonist and author and creator of “Dilbert”, poses for a portrait in his home office on January 6, 2014, in Pleasanton, California. | Source: San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images / Getty
Amid the widespread backlash to Dilbert comic strip author and illustrator Scott Adams’ recent racist comments about Black people, it may be prudent to step back and explore how those unfortunate views probably informed the way he created characters.
Could it be an uncanny coincidence that Adams’ famed comic strip has just one Black character who just happened to be introduced a whopping 23 years after it first went into publication? And surely the questionable context and circumstances under which that Black character was introduced is simply serendipity, right?
After parsing what Adams said last week, and examining Dave, the lone Black character featured in Dilbert, the answer to each of those questions is likely not yes.
In case you missed it, during an episode of Adams’ show on YouTube, he did his damnedest to let his followers know how exactly he feels about Black people. It’s unclear what exactly prompted his racist outburst. But what is abundantly clear is that he’s far from ashamed of them.
To recap, Adams used his YouTube channel to encourage his white listeners to embrace the concept of racial segregation to “escape” Black people, who he collectively referred to as a “hate group.”
Citing his resentment for the phrase, “It’s okay to be white” — with which a Rasmussen poll found 53% of Black people agree with — Adams said white people trying to “help the Black community” is a thankless job.
“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,” Adams said. “Just get the fuck away. Wherever you have to go, just get away. Because there’s no fixing this. This can’t be fixed.”
Hammering home that racist point, Adams continued: “I don’t think it makes any sense as a white citizen of America to try to help Black citizens anymore. It doesn’t make sense. There’s no longer a rational impulse. So I’m going to back off on being helpful to Black America because it doesn’t seem like it pays off.”
There was much more of that sentiment, but you get the point: Scott Adams harbors and espouses racist views about Black people.
And that could help explain the, um, delayed introduction of Dave, the first Black character in the nearly quarter of a century history of Dilbert.
The timing of the introduction may be significant, as well, since it all but coincided with the conservative-led attack on the now-politically charged word “woke.”
The Daily Cartoonist, an industry blog, covered how Adams was “dragged” for how readers first met Dave.
“I identify as white,” are Dave’s first words as he’s presented as a new employee to his coworkers.
Adams appeared to know exactly what he was doing, according to his tweet introducing Dave.
“Let’s see if the world is ready for this,” Adams tweeted cryptically in words that have since taken on a new significance.
It would seem that the Dilbert character Dave was only added to the comic strip in an effort to discredit the hot-button issue of gender while disingenuously using race to do so. In the process, Adams appeared to reveal himself as someone who harbors hatred against the trans and Black communities.
That speculation gained some credence when fellow accused transphobe and racist Elon Musk cosigned Adams’ sentiments by defending the Dilbert creator and claiming the media is “racist against whites.”
Musk chimed in as a growing number of newspapers dropped Dilbert from their comic sections.
This is America.
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