Hundreds of newspapers, including those within the USA Today network, dropped the “Dilbert” comic strip after its creator, Scott Adams, posted a video urging white people “to get the hell away from Black people,” labeling Black people a “hate group.”
Yesterday, Andrews McMeel Universal, the company that syndicates “Dilbert,” also cut ties with Adams. “[W]e will never support any commentary rooted in discrimination or hate,” said chairman Hugh Andrews and CEO and president Andy Sareyan in a joint statement.
Adams’ controversial take came in response to a poll from conservative outfit Rasmussen Reports, which asked people to respond to the question, “It’s okay to be white.” According to the ADL, the phrase emerged from a 4chan discussion board as a trolling campaign in 2017. The majority of respondents agreed it was “okay,” including 53% of Black respondents, while 26% of Black respondents “disagreed” with the question.
It was enough for Adams to light the match.
“If nearly half of all Blacks are not okay with white people…that’s a hate group,” Adams said in a YouTube video. “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. Just get the f–k away…because there is no fixing this.”
The publishing world has been here before with Adams.
Last year, some 77 newspapers published by Lee Enterprises dropped the strip after Adams introduced his first Black character, using it to ridicule the LGBTQ community and “woke” business culture.
Fast forward to today: His book publisher, the Penguin Random House imprint, Portfolio, has shelved the publication of his book, Reframe Your Brain, which was scheduled for a September release.
“My publisher for non-Dilbert books has canceled my upcoming book and the entire backlist,” Adams tweeted on Monday. “Still no disagreement about my point of view. My book agent canceled me too.”
Adams’ call for widespread segregation has cost him dearly, at least in the short term—though I suspect reports of his total cancellation are premature.
After all, this is an age in which there is always a second act: When one door slams shut on your fingers, another opening often drowns out the screams.
Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com
This edition of raceAhead was edited by Ruth Umoh.
On Point
SAG Awards made us feel everything all at once
Everything Everywhere All at Once was the breakout star at the 29th annual actor-focused award show. The film won for Outstanding Performance by a Cast, with Michelle Yeoh snagging the honor for Female Actor in a Leading Role and Jamie Lee Curtis for Female Actor in a Supporting Role. Ke Huy Quan, the recipient of the Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role, became the first-ever male Asian film actor to win a SAG.
EW
Jill Biden wraps up five-day Africa trip
The visit was just one of many promises made by the Biden administration following last December’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, which had been on hiatus for eight years. The first lady’s visit included stops in the east and the Horn of Africa, which is experiencing its worst drought in decades. A $55 billion commitment to invest across the continent and an executive order establishing a new African diaspora council were among the summit's outcomes. Will it make a difference? Some perspectives are below.
Atlantic Council; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Cornell University returns the remains of Oneida ancestors
After a protracted dispute, the university has agreed to return human remains of Native origin to their ancestral burial grounds with the Oneida people. Cornell’s Department of Anthropology had held the remains for nearly 60 years, in defiance of a vaguely worded federal law for the last 13. Today, universities and institutions across the U.S. still hold the remains of some 108,000 individuals and their belongings.
Native News Online
On Background
What would it take to tell a better story about inclusive leadership?
That the dominant narrative about effective leadership still focuses on individual strength and charisma is a big problem, write experts Deborah Bae and Kiernan Doherty in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. The idea that “a single person—one who intervenes to solve a problem or envision a bold new reality—embodies the ‘hero narrative’ of leadership” is everywhere in life, they say. “Many individuals and organizations with positional power want to maintain the status quo—rooted in racism, colonialism, sexism, and other 'isms'—of who has power and who has a voice.” That means more meaningful diversified and community-driven leadership models go unrecognized and undersupported.
SSIR
Parting Words
“You will be back in Mother Earth. You will hear the waters again. You will hear the animals again. You will hear the thunders again. You will remain here undisturbed amongst your relations.”
—Dean Lyons, an Oneida Nation Turtle Clan member, speaking to three of his ancestors during a transfer ceremony at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., on Feb. 21, 2023
