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2023: Elon Musk Defends Racist Tirade By Dilbert Creator Scott Adams
On Sunday, Elon Musk accused the US media of racism while defending racist comments made by Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams on YouTube last week.
Twitter’s CEO tweeted that media that used to be racist against non-whites is now “racist against whites & Asians”.
In the video, Mr. Adams, who is white, said that black Americans were a “hate group” and that white people should “get the hell away” from them.
In response, several US news outlets pulled the cartoon over the weekend.
Mr. Musk claimed that “elite colleges and high schools in America” are also racist in the same tweet.
For a long time, the US media was racist toward non-white people; now, they’re racist against whites and Asians.
The same thing happened in America’s elite colleges and high schools.
Maybe they should try not to be racist.
Elon Musk (@elonmusk) Feb. 26, 2023
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See the original tweet on Twitter.
Since 1989, Dilbert has been a fixture on the funny pages of American newspapers. It stars a disheveled office worker and a talking dog who aim for corporate culture fads.
Dilbert’s distributor is also cutting ties with Mr. Adams, according to a tweet from the company. While Andrews McMeel Universal values free speech, the company said they “will never support any commentary rooted in discrimination or hate”.
According to The Wall Street Journal, a new Dilbert book set to be released in September has also been canceled. Portfolio, a Penguin Random House imprint, has announced that Mr. Adams’ upcoming book, “Reframe Your Brain,” will not be published.
After The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications dropped the popular cartoon, Mr. Adams claims his career has been ruined and that most of his income will be gone by next week.
A Dilbert book set to be released in September has also been canceled
The USA Today network, which operates dozens of newspapers across the United States, is among the media outlets that have dropped the Dilbert cartoon strip.
The comic is written and illustrated by Mr. Adams. His remarks, widely interpreted as encouraging segregation, were made in response to a Rasmussen Reports poll. Respondents were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with the statement, “It’s OK to be white.”
The phrase is thought to have originated as a trolling campaign in 2017 and has since been used by white supremacists.
The poll found that 53% of black respondents agreed with the statement, while 26% disagreed and others were unsure.
Those who disagreed with the phrase were labeled a “hate group” by Mr. Adams.
“Based on the current state of affairs,” Mr. Adams said, “the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from black people because there is no fixing this.”
Mr. Adams, according to Darrin Bell, a Pulitzer Prize-winning black cartoonist, is a disgrace but not unique. “His racism is not even unusual among cartoonists,” he wrote in The New York Times.
According to The Center for Countering Digital Hate and the Anti-Defamation League, there has been an increase in hate speech on Twitter since Mr. Musk’s takeover of the social platform in October.
SOURCE – (BBC)