'Dilbert' dropped by The Post, other papers, after cartoonist's racist rant (https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/02/25/scott-adams-dilbert-canceled/)
QuoteNewspapers across the United States have pulled Scott Adams's long-running "Dilbert" comic strip after the cartoonist called Black Americans a "hate group" and said White people should "get the hell away from" them.
The Washington Post, the USA Today network of hundreds of newspapers, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Los Angeles Times and other publications announced they would stop publishing "Dilbert" after Adams's racist rant on YouTube on Wednesday. Asked on Saturday how many newspapers still carried the strip — a workplace satire he created in 1989 — Adams told The Post: "By Monday, around zero."
The once widely celebrated cartoonist, who has been entertaining extreme-right ideologies and conspiracy theories for several years, was upset Wednesday by a Rasmussen poll that found a thin majority of Black Americans agreed with the statement "It's okay to be White."
"If nearly half of all Blacks are not okay with White people ... that's a hate group," Adams said on his live-streaming YouTube show. "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, 65, also blamed 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."
Outrage followed.
By Thursday, The Post began hearing from readers calling for the strip's cancellation. On Friday, the USA Today Network said that it "will no longer publish the Dilbert comic due to recent discriminatory comments by its creator." The Gannett-owned chain oversees more than 300 newspapers, including the Arizona Republic, Cincinnati Enquirer, Detroit Free Press, Indianapolis Star, Austin American-Statesman and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
"In light of Scott Adams's recent statements promoting segregation, The Washington Post has ceased publication of the Dilbert comic strip," a spokesperson for the newspaper said Saturday, noting that it was too late to stop the strip from running in some upcoming print editions, including Sunday's.
Chris Quinn, the vice president of content for Plain Dealer publisher Advance Ohio, wrote in a letter from the editor Friday that pulling "Dilbert" was "not a difficult decision." "We are not a home for those who espouse racism," Quinn wrote.
"MLive has zero tolerance for racism," wrote John Hiner, the vice president of content for MLive Media Group, which oversees eight Michigan-based publications. The San Antonio Express-News wrote: "These statements are offensive to our core values." The Los Angeles Times noted that it had printed reruns of the comic "when the new daily strip did not meet our standards" four times in the past nine months, and would now cease publication entirely.
"Scott Adams is a disgrace," Darrin Bell, creator of "Candorville" and the first Black artist to win the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning, told The Post on Saturday. "His racism is not even unique among cartoonists." Bell compared Adams's views to the Jim Crow era and more recent examples of White supremacy, including "millions of angry people trying to redefine the word 'racism' itself."
In fact, Adams did exactly that on his YouTube show Saturday. He offered a long, quasi-Socratic defense of his comments, which he said were taken out of context, and seemed to define racism as essentially any political activity. "Any tax code change is racist," he said at one point in the show. He denounced racism against "individuals" and racist laws, but said, "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."
In the same show, Adams suggested that he had done irreparable harm to a once-sterling career.
"Most of my income will be gone by next week," he told about 3,000 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."
Set in a dystopian office where the titular character is tormented by a stupid boss and a talking dog, "Dilbert" appeared in more than 2,000 newspapers at its peak, winning Adams the National Cartoonists Society's Reuben Award in 1998 and spawning a television show that aired on UPN from 1999 to 2000.
The National Cartoonists Society declined to comment. Andrews McMeel Syndication, the company that syndicates "Dilbert," did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The shift in Adams's public image was initially intertwined with his praise for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Since then, he has identified himself with increasingly extremist viewpoints.
In 2019, he apologized to the victims of a mass shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California for a tweet in which he used the tragedy to advertise an app he created. Adams also claimed in June 2020 that the "Dilbert" television show was canceled because he's White, adding that it "was the third job I lost for being White." He tweeted in January 2022 that he planned to "self-identify as a Black woman." He has suggested Americans were brainwashed into supporting Ukraine, and praised anti-vaccine advocates last month.
Last May, Adams used "Dilbert" to mock workplace diversity and transgender politics through a new character called Dave the Black Engineer.
"Dilbert" was dropped last year by Lee Enterprises, a media company that runs 77 newspapers in the United States, though that decision appeared to be part of a larger overhaul. The Times Union reported that it and the San Francisco Chronicle stopped publishing "Dilbert" in recent months, after strips that joked about reparations for slavery and inclusive workplaces.
"His strip went from being hilarious to being hurtful and mean," Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor in chief of the Chronicle and a former managing editor at The Post, told the Times Union. "Very few readers noticed when we killed it, and we only had a handful of complaints."
"Dilbert" nevertheless continued to run in many major publications — at least until this week.
Asked to comment in more detail about his remarks and the mass cancellations, Adams initially declined. He later told The Post in a text message: "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."
... I'm sure he can make a bit of money on the angry racist rightwing talk circuit.
He has been a MAGA right winger for years.
Quote from: Zanza on February 26, 2023, 01:27:17 PMHe has been a MAGA right winger for years.
I know. I've read about it here during the pandemic.
Quote from: Jacob on February 26, 2023, 12:53:43 PM... I'm sure he can make a bit of money on the angry racist rightwing talk circuit.
Marjorie Taylor Greene will organize a GoFundMe for him.
Quite the overreaction from a group who tells us to not trust the polls.
Quote from: Zanza on February 26, 2023, 01:27:17 PMHe has been a MAGA right winger for years.
Even more than that, I'd say, he went off the deep end pretty severely, and now seems to be excavating even lower.
Waaah, he was cancelled by woke leftists! He was telling it like it is!
He can run for high office now successfully in many states.
Yeah to be honest I'm surprised it hadn't already happened given that whenever I saw anything about him it was for saying something crazy.
Tbh this is the first I've heard it's OK to be white as a right wing trick. Pretty dumb.
BBC News - Dilbert comic strip dropped by US media over creator's racist tirade
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64775250
And who has come in support? Elon Musk, of course! No points for guessing.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fp5WbG2akAIwuzE?format=jpg&name=large)
Crossover event with the "Elon Musk: Always a douche" thread.
That survey result is quite the doozy.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on February 26, 2023, 06:17:46 PMThat survey result is quite the doozy.
Looks like the polled 130 black people.
I also found this but I'm not sure how many people would be aware of it: https://www.adl.org/resources/hate-symbol/its-okay-be-white
I'm kinda surprised that any paper was still paying perfectly good money for the Dilbert strip. It hadn't been funny for years when I last saw it maybe 5 years ago.
Adams is not the first cartoonist to grow senile way before his time.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on February 26, 2023, 06:17:46 PMThat survey result is quite the doozy.
It's Rasmussen, king of crap poll.
Among Whites, 81% agreed with the statement "it's ok to be white". Either some picked up on a cultural dog whistle or thought (correctly) the question made no sense.
"Only" 53% of Blacks agreed with the statement but 21% voted "not sure". That latter result is a glaring sign to a reputable polling company that their question was FUBAR, assuming that wasn't obvious to begin with.
This is political advocacy and messaging dressed up in polling methodology. The only conclusion that can be safely drawn from the result is that Rasmussen is a shitty outfit.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on February 26, 2023, 09:59:56 PMIt's Rasmussen, king of crap poll.
Among Whites, 81% agreed with the statement "it's ok to be white". Either some picked up on a cultural dog whistle or thought (correctly) the question made no sense.
Or that they think it's not OK to be white.
Quote"Only" 53% of Blacks agreed with the statement but 21% voted "not sure". That latter result is a glaring sign to a reputable polling company that their question was FUBAR, assuming that wasn't obvious to begin with.
Or that they were not sure if it's OK to be white.
Quote from: garbon on February 26, 2023, 06:33:57 PMQuote from: Admiral Yi on February 26, 2023, 06:17:46 PMThat survey result is quite the doozy.
Looks like the polled 130 black people.
Seems like a low sample for the entire US black population of 47 000 000.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on February 26, 2023, 10:29:25 PMQuote from: The Minsky Moment on February 26, 2023, 09:59:56 PMIt's Rasmussen, king of crap poll.
Among Whites, 81% agreed with the statement "it's ok to be white". Either some picked up on a cultural dog whistle or thought (correctly) the question made no sense.
Or that they think it's not OK to be white.
Quote"Only" 53% of Blacks agreed with the statement but 21% voted "not sure". That latter result is a glaring sign to a reputable polling company that their question was FUBAR, assuming that wasn't obvious to begin with.
Or that they were not sure if it's OK to be white.
When you have 21% of the respondents to a yes or no question say "unsure," it's likeliest that they are unsure of the question.
And it is a dumb question. What does "white" mean in this context?
Is it OK for black people to be white?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on February 26, 2023, 06:17:46 PMThat survey result is quite the doozy.
Not really. First of all it is just one poll and I would need more context and I would need more context to understand what exactly the participants understood what they were answering.
But even if truly 47% of black people either think it is not ok to have certain melanin levels in your skin or are unsure, well that is not exactly a hate group. 53% of a hate group thinking the group to be hated is OK would be a pretty weak sauce hate group.
But I would need many polls addressing this issue from many different angles to draw a meaningful conclusion from it. Immediately declaring you will no longer associate with any high melanin having people based on this one poll is a kind of an extreme response.
The high "not sure" to me does suggest there was a bit of distrust at the weird question. A suspicion there was more to it than met the eye but a uncertainty of what.
Shame there's no follow up why.
Quote from: grumbler on February 27, 2023, 01:11:07 AMWhen you have 21% of the respondents to a yes or no question say "unsure," it's likeliest that they are unsure of the question.
And it is a dumb question. What does "white" mean in this context?
I agree. If I got this question on a survey I would just sort of baffled.
Is it OK to be 5 feet 10 inches tall? Maybe? I guess? What would it mean for it to not be OK (whatever that means)?
Quote from: grumbler on February 26, 2023, 09:18:35 PMI'm kinda surprised that any paper was still paying perfectly good money for the Dilbert strip. It hadn't been funny for years when I last saw it maybe 5 years ago.
Adams is not the first cartoonist to grow senile way before his time.
In fact I believe that already last year Adams had been dropped by a large number of newspapers after he started including "anti-woke" plotlines on the Dilbert strip.
Btw, it appears that the "It's ok to be white" slogan is an alt-right trolling campaign that started on 4chan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_okay_to_be_white (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_okay_to_be_white)
Quote from: The Larch on February 27, 2023, 06:19:35 AMBtw, it appears that the "It's ok to be white" slogan is an alt-right trolling campaign that started on 4chan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_okay_to_be_white (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_okay_to_be_white)
I was unaware of this, and that provides some interesting context. The trolling campaign was weak sauce indeed but that campaign may have influenced or even caused the Rasmusson poll question. It's still moronic.
Quote from: grumbler on February 27, 2023, 08:37:08 AMQuote from: The Larch on February 27, 2023, 06:19:35 AMBtw, it appears that the "It's ok to be white" slogan is an alt-right trolling campaign that started on 4chan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_okay_to_be_white (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_okay_to_be_white)
I was unaware of this, and that provides some interesting context. The trolling campaign was weak sauce indeed but that campaign may have influenced or even caused the Rasmusson poll question. It's still moronic.
I had no idea either, I saw it quoted in the context of Adams' rant but never knew it existed before that. It seems that the campaign's objective is to provoke a reaction, and it seems that they've succeeded. I guess it's a bit like the "All lives matter" slogan, on its face it's inocuous and even bland, but within a context has a more nefarious meaning.
I had an idea as I posted about it in the first page of the thread. :P
Quote from: garbon on February 27, 2023, 09:14:51 AMI had an idea as I posted about it in the first page of the thread. :P
Then next time you should talk about it rather than just posting a link without explaining what's on it. :P
Quote from: The Larch on February 27, 2023, 09:19:48 AMQuote from: garbon on February 27, 2023, 09:14:51 AMI had an idea as I posted about it in the first page of the thread. :P
Then next time you should talk about it rather than just posting a link without explaining what's on it. :P
It was nearly midnight :P
Quote from: garbon on February 27, 2023, 09:20:53 AMQuote from: The Larch on February 27, 2023, 09:19:48 AMQuote from: garbon on February 27, 2023, 09:14:51 AMI had an idea as I posted about it in the first page of the thread. :P
Then next time you should talk about it rather than just posting a link without explaining what's on it. :P
It was nearly midnight :P
The Americans could have kept the thread going until the morning. :P
Is it hip to be square?
Meanwhile Adams continues to train wreck himself on his twitter feed:
QuoteI've lost three careers to direct racism so far. Crocker Bank, Pacific Bell, and cartooning.
All three were perpetrated by White people for their own gain.
No Black person has ever discriminated against me. That's partly why I identified as Black for several years.
Maybe he thinks his best path to climb out is to convince everyone he's mentally ill?
Ah. He is a twitter user.
Well that explains a lot.
Quote from: Valmy on February 27, 2023, 11:48:38 AMAh. He is a twitter user.
Well that explains a lot.
Nah, he's been loony for quite awhile.
I concede the phrasing of the question is open to varying interpretation. I don't think the 4chan thing has much to do with it.
Quote from: Barrister on February 27, 2023, 12:26:35 PMQuote from: Valmy on February 27, 2023, 11:48:38 AMAh. He is a twitter user.
Well that explains a lot.
Nah, he's been loony for quite awhile.
Twitter does have a way of radicalizing celebrities and enabling their worst behavior though.
Quote from: The Larch on February 26, 2023, 06:16:14 PMAnd who has come in support? Elon Musk, of course! No points for guessing.
Musk is virtually the poster child for this effect.
Quote from: viper37 on February 26, 2023, 10:39:20 PMQuote from: garbon on February 26, 2023, 06:33:57 PMLooks like the polled 130 black people.
Seems like a low sample for the entire US black population of 47 000 000.
Assuming a non-biased sample that would be about +/- 10% at 99% confidence (that is the survey shows with 99% confidence that between 63% and 43% of black Americans agree with the statement "It's okay to be white.") That seems like a large margin of error to me (or a low confidence interval, the two are inversely proportional) but I'm approaching this from the standpoint of industry. (Guller may have some better insight; this is more his area than mine.)
The error margin should be disclosed in the poll details but you can't get them without paying Rasmussen $20 per month for a "platinum service" sub.
Quote from: Savonarola on February 27, 2023, 03:38:14 PMQuote from: viper37 on February 26, 2023, 10:39:20 PMQuote from: garbon on February 26, 2023, 06:33:57 PMLooks like the polled 130 black people.
Seems like a low sample for the entire US black population of 47 000 000.
Assuming a non-biased sample that would be about +/- 10% at 99% confidence (that is the survey shows with 99% confidence that between 63% and 43% of black Americans agree with the statement "It's okay to be white.") That seems like a large margin of error to me (or a low confidence interval, the two are inversely proportional) but I'm approaching this from the standpoint of industry. (Guller may have some better insight; this is more his area than mine.)
Yeah, I'm going with Quebec's population of 7 million, and good sample size here is usually in the range of 1500-2000 people for 97,5%-99% confidence.
Now, I can't remember the exact formulas for calculating the right sample sizes, mind you...
The question itself is very vague. What does it mean? How are people likely to interpret it?
Will they take it to mean:
"Is it okay for white people to exist at all?"
"Do you like this 4chan originated catch phrase?"
"Do you think whiteness as it exists in the US is free from white supremacist ideas?"
"Are you okay being friends with white people?"
"Would you feel okay with being white instead of black?"
"Do you think white people in general are careful not to wield their whiteness to harm non-white people?"
"White people as a group haven't really done anything to hurt non-white people."
"Is racism basically solved in this country?"
"Do you think it's cool for black people to 'act white'?"
"Would you be cool with someone telling you you're 'acting white' personally?"
"Do you approve of perfomative whiteness?"
"Do you think 'acting white' is better than 'acting Black'?"
... poorly worded questions - and IMO this is one such question - leave way too much room for respondents to read things into the question.
Quote from: viper37 on February 27, 2023, 07:02:05 PMQuote from: Savonarola on February 27, 2023, 03:38:14 PMQuote from: viper37 on February 26, 2023, 10:39:20 PMQuote from: garbon on February 26, 2023, 06:33:57 PMLooks like the polled 130 black people.
Seems like a low sample for the entire US black population of 47 000 000.
Assuming a non-biased sample that would be about +/- 10% at 99% confidence (that is the survey shows with 99% confidence that between 63% and 43% of black Americans agree with the statement "It's okay to be white.") That seems like a large margin of error to me (or a low confidence interval, the two are inversely proportional) but I'm approaching this from the standpoint of industry. (Guller may have some better insight; this is more his area than mine.)
Yeah, I'm going with Quebec's population of 7 million, and good sample size here is usually in the range of 1500-2000 people for 97,5%-99% confidence.
Now, I can't remember the exact formulas for calculating the right sample sizes, mind you...
The population size from which you're sampling doesn't matter for all practical population sizes. The margin of error is the same whether you're sampling from 47 million or 47 thousand.
Quote from: Valmy on February 27, 2023, 01:17:10 PMTwitter does have a way of radicalizing celebrities and enabling their worst behavior though.
Yeah, should be a clinical term for this social media pattern of behavior by now.
(https://www.cronica.com.ar/__export/1651186524478/sites/cronica/img/2022/04/28/nikocado_avocado_x3x_crop1651185365045.jpg)
QuoteNicholas Perry (born May 19, 1992), known online as Nikocado Avocado, is a Ukrainian-born American Internet celebrity best known for his mukbang videos on YouTube. As of November 2022, he has accumulated more than 7 million subscribers and approximately 1.8 billion total views across six YouTube channels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikocado_Avocado (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikocado_Avocado)
Algorithmic virality as a feature is the original sin of social media...
Quote from: viper37 on February 27, 2023, 07:02:05 PMQuote from: Savonarola on February 27, 2023, 03:38:14 PMQuote from: viper37 on February 26, 2023, 10:39:20 PMQuote from: garbon on February 26, 2023, 06:33:57 PMLooks like the polled 130 black people.
Seems like a low sample for the entire US black population of 47 000 000.
Assuming a non-biased sample that would be about +/- 10% at 99% confidence (that is the survey shows with 99% confidence that between 63% and 43% of black Americans agree with the statement "It's okay to be white.") That seems like a large margin of error to me (or a low confidence interval, the two are inversely proportional) but I'm approaching this from the standpoint of industry. (Guller may have some better insight; this is more his area than mine.)
Yeah, I'm going with Quebec's population of 7 million, and good sample size here is usually in the range of 1500-2000 people for 97,5%-99% confidence.
Now, I can't remember the exact formulas for calculating the right sample sizes, mind you...
Unnecessary.
https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/calculating-sample-size/
But yeah. 2000ish is usually good for an accurate representation of entire countries. You can get a basic unreliable survey for such big populations with a few hundred but it becomes even more important to make sure you get your sample right there.
Quote from: Legbiter on February 28, 2023, 09:06:25 AMQuote from: Valmy on February 27, 2023, 01:17:10 PMTwitter does have a way of radicalizing celebrities and enabling their worst behavior though.
Yeah, should be a clinical term for this social media pattern of behavior by now.
(https://www.cronica.com.ar/__export/1651186524478/sites/cronica/img/2022/04/28/nikocado_avocado_x3x_crop1651185365045.jpg)
QuoteNicholas Perry (born May 19, 1992), known online as Nikocado Avocado, is a Ukrainian-born American Internet celebrity best known for his mukbang videos on YouTube. As of November 2022, he has accumulated more than 7 million subscribers and approximately 1.8 billion total views across six YouTube channels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikocado_Avocado (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikocado_Avocado)
Algorithmic virality as a feature is the original sin of social media...
Why do you know of such things?
Rock, under. See garbon.
:wacko: Nikocado Avocado is gay??!? Women love him!
I had no idea what a mukbanger was until today. Thanks legbiter. :glare:
The key take away is any rational person, if prone to be concerned about such a poll, would actually dig into the poll itself. Not make it the basis for going on a segregationist screed--unlike a lot of "cancelling" incidents where the cancelled person is at least somewhat misconstrued, Adams left very little nuance--he explicitly advocated for societal racial segregation based off the findings of a single Rasmussen poll.
Ignoring the fact the total sample size of black people was under 150.
Ignoring the fact he had done zero research into the question, how it was asked, the context etc.
Ignoring that the poll asked no follow up questions to attempt to clarify responses.
It's literally a push poll--Rasmussen took a phrase he knew was divisive and ran a poll to get a certain result. It is nowhere close to being in the same galaxy as "good barometer for the opinion of America's black population."