“Dilbert” cartoonist Scott Adams has just learned that being canceled is more than just figurative. Multiple newspapers and the cartoonist’s syndicate dropped his comic strip after Adams went full David Duke on us and, in a recent episode of his YouTube show “Real Coffee with Scott Adams,” called Black people “a hate group” that white people need to “get the hell away from.”
“Dilbert” cartoonist Scott Adams has just learned that being canceled is more than just figurative.
“We are not a home for those who espouse racism,” Chris Quinn, editor of The Plain Dealer of Cleveland, wrote in a letter to readers. “We certainly do not want to provide them with financial support.” Other newspapers used similar language in explaining their decisions to ditch “Dilbert.” The San Antonio Express-News is dropping it because “of hateful and discriminatory public comments by its creator,” and the Los Angeles Times cited Adams’ “racist comments.”
Andrews McMeel Universal, the syndicate that had been distributing his cartoon to those newspapers, has also dumped “Dilbert.”
Adams deserves every cancellation he gets, but he’s not alone in deserving our opprobrium. He might not have made the specific racist remarks he made but for Rasmussen Reports, which, smack-dab in the middle of Black History Month, decided to ask a pair of questions more befitting of Confederate Heritage Month.
Rasmussen Reports pollsters asked 1,000 people to agree or disagree with two statements: “It’s OK to be white” and “Black people can be racist, too.” Nothing good was ever going to come from those questions, and it was irresponsible and incendiary for Rasmussen to use those questions, and only those questions, in a survey.
In promoting its poll results, which depressingly found that most Americans think Black people can be racist, Rasmussen Reports used the headline “Not ‘Woke’ Yet? Most Voters Reject Anti-White Beliefs.” Get it? To be “woke” is to be anti-white. No polling organization that would make such an assertion should be given any attention when it attempts to analyze American race relations.
“It’s OK to be white” is a sentence that has been embraced by white supremacists who oppose good-faith efforts to make our country more diverse, equitable and inclusive. “Black people can be racist, too,” is another sentiment one hears primarily from white people who don’t want to be reminded of the oppression white Americans have carried out. They are the same people who, contrary to all the evidence, argue that racism in America works both ways.
Rasmussen Reports was asking people, including Black people, to agree with phrases associated with racist people and racist politics.
Rasmussen Reports was asking people, including Black people, to agree with phrases associated with racist people and racist politics. And Adams got mad at Black people — and bizarrely vowed to withdraw his help from Black Americans — because reportedly 26% of Black respondents refused to play along and disagreed with the statement “It’s OK to be white.”
Words don’t have meaning outside of their context. That context is more than the other words that come before and after. That context also includes the political and cultural environment. If Rasmussen Reports had asked respondents to agree with the statement “Black lives matter,” we would have expected a significant percentage of white people to answer “no,” because the phrase “Black lives matter” is associated with the kind of politics and the kinds of protest that a majority of white Americans oppose.
Similarly, if those pollsters had asked Black people whether they agreed with the statement “All lives matter,” we would expect a significant number of people to say “no,” because “All lives matter” has been and remains an angry response to “Black lives matter.” Dilbert has been cancelled from all newspapers, websites, calendars, and books because I gave some advice everyone agreed with. (My syndication partner canceled me.) We shouldn’t take this Rasmussen Reports poll seriously given that the only two questions sounded like they were taken directly out of the mouth of the neighborhood Klan leader. What Adams responded to wasn’t a serious poll as much as it was political mischief masquerading as one. And though mischief was caused, no so-called woke people have been reported harmed. Given that celebrities who get figuratively canceled see themselves as victims, it’s not surprising that Adams, who is literally being canceled, is crying foul. He’s now claiming that his only point was that “everyone should be treated as an individual.” That’s exactly what’s happening. Not every white cartoonist is being yanked from the funny pages. Just him.
Jarvis DeBerry is an opinion editor for MS NOW Daily. 
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