Not So Great Scott

Cartoonist Scott Adams is critical of the Cleveland Plain Dealer which joined 77 other newspapers which had previously dropped carrying his comic strip “Dilbert.”  The Plain Dealer’s action came after Adams (who has a long history of positions so extreme that many papers found problematic) went on a racist rant on his YouTube show.
 
(One of those 77 other newspapers that had already cancelled Dilbert was the San Francisco Chronicle.  “His strip went from being hilarious to being hurtful and mean,” Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, the editor in chief of the Chronicle, said. “Very few readers noticed when we killed it, and we only had a handful of complaints.”)
 
Adams got into his racist tirade after quoting a Rasmussen poll that said 27% of Black people did not agree with the statement “It’s okay to be white,” (to which is should be noted that 8% of White people didn’t agree with the statement either.  Furthermore 66% of Black people polled did agree with the statement.)  As a result, Adams dismissed all Black people (including that two-thirds who agreed that it was okay to be White), calling all Blacks a “hate group” and said, “I don’t want to have anything to do with them. And 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.”
 
I should add that before making his statement, he completely misquoted the poll results (as have newspaper articles taking his words as fact) by noting “nearly half of all Blacks are not okay with White people.”  Never mind that “Do  you hate White people” wasn’t at all what the poll asked, even more to the point is that 26% is not even close to “nearly half.”  And 53% in support is over half.  Pretty weird for what Adams calls a "hate group."  (NOTE:  The 21% who were not sure can't be added to the "disagree" side any more than they can be added to those who "agree.")

​Elon Musk just joined the fray in defense of Adams, and posted a Tweet asking “ “What exactly are they complaining about?” He later deleted this after someone seemingly told him, “Er, Elon, that’s a really bad look and is going to drive even more advertisers away.”)  He also later Tweeted that “Adams’ comments weren’t good” (how deeply thoughtful of him…except for the part where he doesn’t say the comments were actually bad or racist), but added a qualifier that there is “an element of truth” to what Adams said.  Unfortunately, Musk left out what he considers that “element of truth.”  For instance, it’s true that Scott Adams doesn’t want to have anything to do with Black people.  But that element doesn’t make the statements okay, it’s what makes them racist.
 
Musk said as well (for reasons and logic known only to him) that the media was “racist against whites.”  But given that Musk has let virulent racists back on Twitter after having been kicked off by the previous owners, it’s unclear if Musk meant this as a criticism, regardless of whether it’s true or not.
  
Let’s be very clear.
 
Scott Adams has free speech. He can make all the racist comments he wants. Elon Musk can, too, if he wants.  Scott Adams wasn't arrested, he wasn’t put in jail.  He can keep making even more racist comments. Elon Musk can restore Twitter privileges to every racist he wants.  In fact, as far as free speech goes, Scott Adams still has his YouTube show, and he can fill that will all the racist comments his little heart desires.  And he still has his comic strip running in many newspapers.  But – no newspaper is required to pay him money to run his comic strip if the publishers think it reflects badly on their paper and could lose them subscribers for being associated with it.  That’s free enterprise.  That’s the law.  That is free speech.  Others have it, just like you do.
 
No doubt there will be those who cry out in trying to convince others that this all is a part of “cancel culture.”  Though as noted, Scott Adams is still being published, still has his YouTube show and still is allowed to be racist all day long.  The larger reality is while people are allowed to do what they want, they are fools if they think others don’t have that same right.  And that there aren’t consequences to our actions. 
 
Indeed, that’s what the editors of the Cleveland Plain Dealer said when explaining their actions.  “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.”
 
In the end, the words of Scott Adams himself speak loudly for himself.  Now that he’s seen these poll results (and totally misquoted them), it told him all he needed to know to justify his racism.  “I don’t want to have anything to do with them,” he said. 
 
What he left out noting was what he had done previously with Black people.