I apologize to 'Dilbert' comic creator Scott Adams for forcing him to be racist

As a member of “the media,” I would like to formally apologize for forcing “Dilbert” creator Scott Adams to be racist.

As you may have heard, the cartoonist took to his YouTube channel last week and said: “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.”

He also labeled Black people as members of a “hate group.”

If Elon Musk blames me, I'm sure I'm at fault

We in the media swiftly reported on these comments, and on the fact that most humans with functioning brains were labeling the comments racist because they are very, very racist.

The blowback prompted Twitter owner Elon Musk, who, like Adams, is a senior member of the American Coalition of Aggrieved-For-No-Reason White Men Who Never Shut Up, to tweet in support of Adams: “The media is racist.”

Musk went on: “For a *very* long time, US media was racist against non-white people, now they’re racist against whites & Asians.”

OK. When a noted media historian like Musk makes a statement like that, it’s incumbent on journalists like myself to devote at least several seconds to deciphering what he’s on about.

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I'm ashamed I forced Scott Adams to say terrible things about Black people

And here’s the conclusion I reached, at least as it regards my own journalistic work:

Because I have written about the fact that racism is still a thing (as evidenced by Adams’ aforementioned very, very racist comments) and because I have staked out a bold “racism is bad” stance, I am actually racist against white people, even though I am, last I checked, white people.

The racism I apparently harbor toward white people is why Adams was forced to say on the internet that he doesn’t want to live anywhere near Black people, resulting in pretty much every newspaper in America canceling his comic strip that I didn’t know still existed.

I have to say, I feel terrible about this. How dare I put Mr. Adams in the position of having to voluntarily parrot white-supremacist rhetoric on YouTube. Shame on me.

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I guess the question I have to ask myself is: When will people like me in the media wake up and realize people like Adams and Musk just want equal treatment, as long as that equal treatment means they are in control, as they have been throughout history, and are allowed to discriminate against whoever they want under the guise of “free speech”?

When, I must ask myself, will I knock off the woke “caring about marginalized communities” nonsense and wrap powerful white men in soft, protective blankets that will insulate them from criticism whenever they say they don’t want to live near Black people?

How dare I not recognize how easily these men bruise!

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If one poll said it, then it's OK to be racist, right?

Adams based his YouTube comments about Black people on a poll that found 26% of Black people disagree with the phrase, “It’s OK to be white.” That prompted him to say: “If nearly half of all Blacks are not OK with white people … that’s a hate group.”

Like the total jerks that we are, I and others in the media highlighted several issues: 26% is not half; the poll was conducted by the conservative Rasmussen company, which has taken a liking to polls that troll liberals; the phrase “It’s OK to be white” bubbled up from white-supremacist groups looking for a seemingly anodyne phrase to use to troll liberals; and it's likely many respondents were reacting to the heavily meme’d phrase itself; and taking one point from a dodgy poll and using it to label any group of people a hate group is a pathetically impotent move.

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On behalf of those of us who reverse-racist-ly leveraged facts to make Mr. Adams sound racist for saying racist things, I humbly apologize. It was wrong, and we should be ashamed for making the cartoonist look like a disreputable, entitled dingus when he was doing a perfectly fine job of that on his own.

Noting that Musk seems to sympathize with racists just because he does was wrong of me

As for Mr. Musk, I must also apologize on behalf of myself and all media members for making note of the fact that since taking over Twitter he has allowed an array of virulently racist figures back on the platform, including the founder of the neo-Nazi site The Daily Stormer.

It was also exceedingly racist of me and others to report that the use of racial slurs on Twitter increased dramatically after he took over the company last year. It was likely that kind of “reporting on things that happened” behavior that forced Mr. Musk to rush in and defend Mr. Adams’ declaration that “it makes no sense whatsoever as a white citizen of America to try to help Black citizens anymore. It doesn’t make sense. It’s no longer a rational impulse.”

I hope the American Coalition of Aggrieved-For-No-Reason White Men Who Never Shut Up can forgive me

For compelling Mr. Musk to defend the indefensible, I offer my sincerest apology. I hope he can find it in his heart to forgive my racism, which he made up to defend Mr. Adams’ hateful comments, as easily as he excused Mr. Adams’ hateful comments by nonsensically blaming the media.

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I’ll also be forwarding a copy of this mea culpa to the American Coalition of Aggrieved-For-No-Reason White Men Who Never Shut Up.

Just so they have another thing to never shut up about.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Twitter @RexHuppke and Facebook facebook.com/RexIsAJerk.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Dilbert' cartoonist Scott Adams is racist. It's my fault, apparently