Dilbert got torpedoed

Scott Adams, author of the popular Dilbert comic strip said some naughty things that really offended a slew of folks. Woof! This one's a real stinker. In my opinion Adams was increasingly radicalizing in recent years. Maybe one could now call him a radical right extremist. The Oregonian is one of the newspapers that stopped publishing Dilbert in response to Adams' comments. He made his opinions public on his YouTube channel a few days ago. The editor of The Oregonian explained why he chose to stop publishing Dilbert:
Letter from the Editor: Why we are no longer running the comic strip ‘Dilbert’
 
The Oregonian will no longer publish the long-running “Dilbert” comic strip after its creator Scott Adams broadcast a racist rant on social media.

I made the decision after watching Adams’ nearly hourlong diatribe on his YouTube show “Real Coffee with Scott Adams,” which included such exhortations as, “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.”

Typically, I like to fully explain our decisions to readers but much of what he said is too patently offensive. I won’t repeat his comments here.

Some readers no doubt will deride my decision as an example of overly “woke” culture or as a knee-jerk “politically correct” response. What about free speech, they might ask? Isn’t this censorship?

No one is taking Adams’ free speech rights away. He is free to share his abhorrent comments on YouTube and Twitter so long as those companies allow them.

This also isn’t censorship; it’s editing. Editors make decisions every day about what to publish, balancing the need to inform against the possibility of offending reader sensibilities. 
Adams’ recent comments about Black Americans are indefensible. As my colleague Chris Quinn, editor of Cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer, said so well: “We are not a home for those who espouse racism. We certainly do not want to provide them with financial support.”
I bet that the radical right propaganda Leviathan from Faux News down to the crackpottiest of the crackpot radical right politics websites is going to have a bucket-'o-fun demagoguing this one. Time to settle in and watch the poopstorm unfold.

poopstorm


audience watching it

Note: I watched some of the Adams' YouTube show. What I could not stand was the smug arrogance oozing out of the guy. His ego must be gigantic. And, his comments really were offensive. One can only wonder how some of his argument would be taken if he showed humility and regret about what he was saying. But for some of  it, neither humility nor regret would do the trick.


By Germaine: The one with the enquiring mind

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