The multiple times Scott Adams has cried anti-white prejudice: Eric Foster

ATLANTA — In June 2020, Scott Adams claimed that his 1999-2000 “Dilbert” TV cartoon series, which had aired on the since-closed United Paramount Network (UPN), had been canceled because he was white. Per a June 28, 2020, tweet from Adams, “That was the third job I lost for being white. The other two in corporate America. (They told me directly.)”

In 2006, Adams had told an interviewer the “Dilbert” cartoon series was canceled because the show’s time slot kept changing and the show airing before it was “the worst TV show ever made.”

In September 2022, a large newspaper publisher cut “Dilbert” from 77 of its newspapers. Adams told Fox News that he “wasn’t sure” if it was related to him introducing new themes into his work around wokeness and also a new character, “Dave,” who is Black but identifies as white. The publisher, Lee Enterprises, said the change was simply part of a cutback on how many comic strips it publishes.

Two weeks ago, cartoonist Scott Adams posted an episode on his Youtube channel, “Real Coffee with Scott Adams” wherein he offered his new perspective on Black Americans. He claimed that he had dedicated a lot of his “life resources” to helping Black people, so much so that he began identifying as Black to “be on the team he was helping.” However, his supportive attitude towards Black people was permanently altered due to a recent Rasmussen poll which, he said, had determined that 47% of Black Americans did not think it was OK to be white. Per Adams, this poll revealed Black Americans to be a “hate group,” and he advised white people to “get the hell away from Black people,” noting the “very low Black population” in his neighborhood.

The response to his comments was swift. By the weekend, newspapers across the country — including The Plain Dealer — pulled Adams’ comic strip “Dilbert” from their pages. Undeterred, Adams took to Twitter where, in response to a user claiming his comments were “heartbreaking,” Adams responded, “You should hear it in context. You would agree.”

Many, like that Twitter user, were understandably shocked by Adams’ comments. If you haven’t been following Adams in recent years, they would seem a bit out of character. “Dilbert” is one of the most successful comic strips in history, having appeared in 2,000 newspapers in 70 countries. The comic strip led to books, games, and the aforementioned TV cartoon series. I’m sure few, if any, people had pegged Adams for a racist at the height of his success.

But if you’ve been following him in recent years, you might not be as shocked. You might say, this is just another episode of a pattern, one that Adams has been using to maintain a modicum of relevance, particularly in conservative circles. Look again at the prior instances that I detailed. Do you see it? Scott Adams has a pattern of using lies and misinformation to manufacture outrage.

The “Dilbert” TV cartoon series was canceled in 2000. Six years later, Adams said it was because of blunders by the television network, UPN. Twenty years later, he claimed that it was because he was white. The difference? In 2020, using Twitter, he could speak directly to an audience that was ready to receive (and run with) such anecdotal “evidence” of so-called “reverse discrimination.” It doesn’t matter that Adams’ story changed.

When his comic strip was pulled from almost 80 papers last year, he reported the news directly to his Twitter followers. He didn’t have to outright claim that he was a victim of “cancel culture,” his conservative followers did that for him. Never mind that other comic strips were also affected.

When, this year, he “cited” the Rasmussen poll as showing that 47% of Black Americans don’t think it’s OK to be white, he failed to mention that he made this statistic up. The poll results showed that 53% of Black Americans — the majority of those polled — either strongly agreed or somewhat agreed with the statement, “It’s OK to be white.” Just 26% of those polled either strongly disagreed (8%) or somewhat disagreed (18%) with that statement.

To get to 47%, Adams included the percentage of respondents who said, “Not sure” (21%), with the 26% who disagreed on some level with the statement. In Adams’ mind, responding with “not sure” was the same as thinking it wasn’t OK to be white. In other words, despite the poll having a fifth option for Black Americans who hadn’t developed an opinion, Adams didn’t really believe people who exercised that option. Either you think it’s OK to be white, or you don’t. It was a Black or white question (pun intended).

If I’m being completely honest, I can understand how Adams interpreted the “not sure” responses. If the statement was, “It’s OK to be Black,” I might — like Adams — make some negative assumptions about someone who responds, “Not sure.” I wouldn’t call you a member of the KKK, but I would certainly have some follow-up questions. Specifically, I would want to know exactly why that was your response.

But the Rasmussen poll didn’t report anyone’s reasons for responding with “not sure.” One can only speculate about why they didn’t. In my mind, that is a huge data-gathering gap, if the goal is to objectively report the opinions of Black Americans. Leaving such a gap presents an opportunity for those who already harbor ill feelings towards Black Americans to justify their hatred with “evidence” of mutual disdain.

Enter Scott Adams. He seized that opportunity and used the poll to justify his own pre-existing racial animus towards Black people. Under his version of events, Black people and wokeness had already cost him multiple jobs and publishing royalties. Considering what we did to him, we obviously were not his favorite group of people. Now, he’s discovered a poll that he chooses to interpret as saying that Black people don’t like white people. That’s all the cover that he and others who think like him need in order to justify vocalizing in public their private racist feelings: [Begin ital] I’m not racist. Black people are racist. I’m only responding to their racism [End ital].

I should also note that this entire claim of widespread reverse racism among Black Americans rests upon a ridiculously small sample size. The Rasmussen poll surveyed 1,000 American adults. Just 13% of those polled were Black. That means that this poll proclaiming to state the opinions of “Black Americans” represented the opinions of a grand total of just 130 Black people. Now, I’m not a social scientist, but I don’t think that’s enough Black people to qualify as a representative sample of all 42 million of us.

Eric Foster is a columnist for The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com.

Unfortunately, manufacturing outrage using lies and/or misinformation has always been a particularly potent method — particularly when that method is utilized in a racial context. American history is scattered with beaten, tortured, and dead Black bodies as a result of white lies and/or misinformation. The lynching of Eliza Woods in 1886. The Atlanta Race Massacre of 1906. The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. The Rosewood Massacre in 1923. The abduction, torture, and lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955.

The only thing new is that we are now in the so-called Information Age. With just a click of a mouse, or the opening of an application on a smartphone, we have the ability to access more information at any given time than any people who walked this Earth before us. One would presume that this would make us the smartest generation of people who ever lived.

At times, most times really, I think that we are. But then, people like Scott Adams (and others) continue to achieve and maintain relevance by trafficking in age-old patterns of lies and misinformation. During those times I think, well … maybe not.

Eric Foster, a community member of the editorial board, is a columnist for The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com. Foster is a lawyer in private practice. The views expressed are his own.

To reach Eric Foster: ericfosterpd@gmail.com

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