Opinion: Dilbert creator Scott Adams' long reign of hate a failure of the media, public

Ray Marcano, a long-time journalist, is the former national president of the Society of Professional Journalists, a two-time Pulitzer juror, and a Fulbright fellow. 

George Orwell, the novelist, once said, “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”

That quote applies to Scott Adams, because his racist comments have always been in front of our noses, and we struggled to pay attention … until now.

Adams, the creator of Dilbert, went all Marjorie Taylor Green on us with repugnant remarks suggesting segregation would be a cool thing.

“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,” Adams said on his YouTube channel. He took issue with a recent survey from a right-wing pollster that claimed one in four Black people answered “no” when asked, “Is it OK to be white?”

He called Black people a part of a hate group and said he wouldn’t help them anymore.

I’m unsure how he’s helped Black people unless flaunting his privilege to disparage them counts.

Let’s look at Scott Adams' record.

Adams turned Dilbert into a TV show for the UPN network in 1999 and 2000.  The network canceled Dilbert after it finished 152 out of 153 shows.  At first, Adams claimed poor decisions by network executives led to his show’s demise. But, in 2020, he revised history and said UPN canceled Dilbert because of his skin color.

“I lost my TV show for being white when UPN decided it would focus on an African-American audience,” he wrote. He also claimed that two companies told him he lost his job because he’s white, which would violate I can’t imagine how many state and federal statutes.

In 2020, he said he’d identify as a Black woman until Biden names a Supreme Court justice, an insult to a historic appointment meant to show the strength of our uniqueness.

In 2022, he introduced “Dave the Black engineer,” whose first appearance poked fun at workplace diversity.

But the YouTube remarks were the final straw. Adams, on Twitter, said he’s lost, in essence, all of his Dilbert deals.

With his remarks, he canceled himself.

Even after all of this, he shows he still has no sense. On March 1, he tweeted that wanted to discuss “success strategies for Black Americans,” which is like asking the Proud Boys to convene a racial unity summit.

Adams also relishes in his white victimhood that fuels much of today’s conservative politics.

Nothing is ever Adams’ fault. Not his bad TV show no one wanted to watch, not his imprudence on Twitter, not his idiocy on YouTube.

More:7 biting cartoons about Dilbert creator Scott Adam being 'canceled' after racist rant

Dilbert poked fun at workplace culture. Adam now pokes fun at Black culture and fuels to fire of hate. “See, if Scott Adams says it so, it must be true!”

He treats his controversies as some sort of game and starts tweets with, “Now that I have your attention …”

This isn’t a game. It’s a failure of his audience and the media that supported him to recognize that his outrageous comments aren’t born out of satire but tell us who he is.

He was right under our nose the whole time. It took way too long to recognize the smell.

Ray Marcano, a long-time journalist, is the former national president of the Society of Professional Journalists, a two-time Pulitzer juror, and a Fulbright fellow. 

Get more political analysis by listening to the Ohio Politics Explained podcast

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Dilbert creator Scott Adams record of racist statements, acts