U.S. newspapers drop Dilbert cartoon after creator calls Black Americans ‘hate group’ | CBC News

The cartoon Dilbert has been dropped from numerous U.S. newspapers in response to a racist rant by its creator on YouTube.

Scott Adams called Black Americans a “hate group” and suggested white Americans “get the hell away from Black people” in response to a conservative organization’s poll purporting to show that many African Americans do not think it’s OK to be white.

“If nearly half of all Blacks are not OK with white people … that’s a hate group,” Adams said on his YouTube channel on Wednesday. “And I don’t want to have anything to do with them.”

The comments ignited a furor on social media, along with calls for the cartoonist’s work to be dropped from publishers’ rosters.

His once-popular comic strip, which lampoons corporate culture and was launched in 1989, will no longer be carried by the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the USA Today-affiliated group of newspapers and others, the newspapers announced in statements on Friday and Saturday.

“This is not a difficult decision,” Chris Quinn, editor of the Plain Dealer in Cleveland, said in a letter to readers posted on Friday. “We are not a home for those who espouse racism.”

Individual cartoons removed earlier

The Los Angeles Times on Saturday said it, too, would drop the strip.

“Cartoonist Scott Adams made racist comments in a YouTube live stream Feb. 22, offensive remarks that The Times rejects,” the newspaper said on its website.

The Times said it had removed four Dilbert cartoons from its pages in recent months because they violated the newspaper’s standards.

The New York Times said the comic strip appeared only in its international print edition. Spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha said it will no longer be published in those papers after the cartoonist’s comments.

Adams could not immediately be reached for comment by Reuters on Saturday. But on his YouTube channel, he confirmed his comic was being dropped and said he had expected that to happen.

‘You can’t come back from this’

“By Monday, I should be mostly cancelled. So most of my income will be gone by next week,” he said. “My reputation for the rest of my life is destroyed. You can’t come back from this.”

Adams’ initial remarks came in response to a conservative Rasmussen Poll that appeared to show that 26 per cent of Black respondents said they disagreed with the statement “It’s OK to be white.” Another 21 per cent said they were not sure.

However, Rasmussen also said the online and phone survey last week of 1,000 likely U.S. voters showed that 72 per cent of Americans overall agree it’s OK to be white, compared with 12 per cent who disagree.