Almost all newspapers and publications across the United States have pulled “Dilbert”, a long-running, popular comic strip after its creator’s racist tirade against African-Americans on camera went viral prompting him to offer a defense of his comments admitting his career and reputation is gone.
“Most of my income will be gone by next week,” he told his live-stream viewers. “My reputation for the rest of my life is destroyed. You can’t come back from this, am I right? There’s no way you can come back from this.”
In a feeble defense of his outrageous remarks, he offered an explanation and claimed his comments were taken out of context but could not salvage much.
“You should absolutely be racist whenever it’s to your advantage. Every one of you should be open to making a racist personal career decision," he said.
Scott Adams, 65, on his show YouTube show “Real Coffee with Scott Adams” told followers days ago about a Rasmussen poll that found that approximately 53 per cent of Black Americans were okay with White Americans while the rest were not. And based on this conservative organisation's poll, he asked white people to “get the hell away” from Black people.
“If nearly half of all Blacks are not okay with White people… that’s a hate group. 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,” Adams said in his rant.
Also read: Dilbert comic strip dropped by US media over creator's racist rant
Adams has been for years promoting his extreme-right ideologies and conspiracy theories for several years even though he was once a celebrated cartoonist.
After his rant caused outrage, several newspapers dropped their long-standing association with Adams and dropped “Dilbert”, a workplace satire he created in 1989.
The Washington Post, USA Today and the New York Times were among hundreds of publications to end their association with Adams saying that they would not like to promote or contribute to the income of an individual promoting racism or segregation. He told The Post that he is down to “almost zero”, when asked how many are still publishing him.
Adams also went on a separate invective about Black people for not “focusing on education” during the show and said, “I’m also really sick of seeing video after video of Black Americans beating up non-Black citizens.”
Adams has found a supporter though in one of the world's richest men and self-appointed free speech advocate Elon Musk.
"For a *very* long time, US media was racist against non-white people, now they’re racist against whites & Asians. Same thing happened with elite colleges & high schools in America. Maybe they can try not being racist," Musk wrote in a Twitter thread where Adams was getting some support.
Dilbert had been dropped by several publications last year after the comic turned increasingly radical with slavery, racism and transgender jokes. Adams had even tweeted last year that he planned to “self-identify as a Black woman" to his growing list of unsavoury comments that harmed him further.
Read: Dilbert creator Scott Adams’ racist tirade and previous controversies
After declining to comment, Adams sent a text message to The Washington Post where he seemed to stand by his remarks.
“Lots of people are angry, but I haven’t seen any disagreement yet, at least not from anyone who saw the context. Some questioned the poll data. That’s fair," he wrote.
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