18 ms·
We are dropping the Dilbert comic because of creator Scott Adams racist rant
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- uberman 4y agoBlack Americans when polled by Rasmussen: "It's okay to be white." 53% agree, 26% disagree, 21% not sure https://mobile.twitter.com/Rasmussen_Poll/status/1628460192932237313 https://mobile.twitter.com/Rasmussen_Poll/status/16284601929...
- api 4y agoHow many people knew that was a saying associated with white nationalist types and reacted to that? Would the result be the same if it were differently worded? For example: If someone asked me something like “are you proud of Western civilization” my literal rational answer would be yes but then I’d stop and wonder if I was being asked to agree with a fascist dog whistle phrase. Modern discourse is a minefield of dog whistles that sound reasonable when interpreted literally but signal alignment with something. The large not sure response makes it seem like people were confused or suspicious like that. In any case what Scott said went beyond just calling BS on a poll and was rather unhinged and strange. He’s been off his rocker for a while so I’m surprised it took him this long to start getting dropped.
- uberman 4y agoI'm not condoning Adams nor have I ever heard this phrase used as a dog whistle. I am just pointing out that some polling organization did some work and found what to me was a surprising result. Dog whistle or not, I am personally surprised by that result. Just as I was surprised by polling that suggested almost 30% of Americans say it might be necessary to take up arms against the government.
- api 4y agoI’ve heard it from those circles. It definitely has a dog whistle feel to it. I agree that the poll results are wacko, but when I see nutty poll results I usually start asking questions about the poll. How was the question asked? How were respondents selected? Was there any attempt to filter for bias? Was it an online poll that a bunch of trolls decided to ballot stuff with a botnet? Online polls are trash unless great care is taken to filter results, and this takes some nontrivial infosec know how. Also remember that everything is click bait now. Media outlets have an incentive to structure polls to get goofy results to get clicks. If the results had been reasonable we wouldn’t be talking about this.
- freejazz 4y agoOh gosh - someone took a one-sided poll with zany results, I guess we need to have race war now!
- CrimsonCape 4y agoThis is the same reason why we see hot-takes like "Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner." From a historical, obvious it-happened naive point of view, yes absolutely it's 100% true. But the point of invoking that hot-take is to justify tearing down statues of Jefferson, and disrespecting Jefferson is itself is a symbolic act of attacking the validity of the founding principles of the USA. Also, it's intentionally meant to undermine people who have respect for Jefferson.
- dragonwriter 4y ago> But the point of invoking that hot-take is to justify tearing down statues of Jefferson, and disrespecting Jefferson is itself is a symbolic act of attacking the validity of the founding principles of the USA. Jefferson himself would probably be less upset by that than the secular religion worshipping the founders (and even if that waan’t a largely fictious image of them that relied on ignoring historical facts) that has grown up in place of critical political thought in this country.
- Raed667 4y ago> a slogan which originated as part of an organized alt-right trolling campaign on the website 4chan's discussion board /pol/ in 2017 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_okay_to_be_white https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_okay_to_be_white
- joenot443 4y agoI think you’re vastly overestimating how many people would see that phrase as a meme and wouldn’t just be responding in good faith.
- freejazz 4y agoas opposed to you good faith assuming that 20% of black people don't think it's okay to be white?
- joenot443 4y agoI live in a very demographically mixed part of NYC. I wasn't pleased with that result, but wasn't especially surprised by it either. People are angry these days, I think one would be ignorant to pretend otherwise.
- freejazz 4y agoYeah? I'm actually from NYC, not just living here, and I completely disagree with you. You probably shouldn't go outside if you can't mentally navigate around this sort of credulously stupid nonsense. Maybe an internship for Adams is your kind of thing.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Manuel_D 4y agoAnd the trolls were proven right, apparently. The correct response to trolling is to not take the bait. But people seem to be devouring the bait. Disagreeing with the statement "it's okay to be white" is just such a bone-headed move that I'm more frustrated with the people responding negatively than the people asking the question.
- nindalf 4y agoRasmussen are partisan hacks. I don’t take anything they say seriously.
- Laaas 4y agoDo you have a link to any evidence of prior misconduct that affects the validity of their studies?
- rootusrootus 4y agoThey do have a reputation for leaning a bit right, although it looks like Nate Silver thinks they're only slightly to the right, and reasonably reliable.
- benj111 4y agoWell this is an issue. If only 53% of white people thought it was ok to be black, or any other minority, that would be seen as a problem. I don't see why the answer changes just because roles are reversed. If you want equality, these things go both ways. And if you don't want equality, you're racist, or some other ist. This isnt a battle with a 'winner' the goal is everyone being equal, black or white. Black people need to be signed up to that too. All this being said, I haven't listened to the podcast, so I'm not condoning or condemning what was said.
- throwawaysleep 4y agoThe problem isn't the idea. The problem is that "it's ok to be white" is a known racist slogan.
- teddyh 4y agoEvery snappy slogan eventually becomes a slogan “widely known” for being a dog whistle for extremist opinions. You can’t express any nuanced opinion without eventually being lumped together with crazy extremists.
- throwawaysleep 4y agoNuanced opinions are very rarely expressed with snappy slogans.
- teddyh 4y agoEvery proponent of an opinion with a snappy slogan will gladly explain how their opinion is very nuanced. Take, for instance, “defund the police”. It can be explained as a reasonable nuanced opinion, and not the literal interpretation. The same can be applied to most every slogan.
- freejazz 4y agoYou really like using words such as "every" where they have no reason to be used. Why are you making these kind of in-equivocal statements when they are clearly baseless and are just an expression of your political feeling. Good, express your political feelings. Telling people how everyone in a group of people does xyz is the exact problem you are complaining about.
- SuperNinKenDo 4y agoRevealing that simply referencing the poll's results is enough to get downvoted here. I think it's a response to the fear that anti-white sentiment is obviously growing, coupled with the understanding that it is socially unacceptable to acknowledge it. This combination causes a lot of anxiety in people, and they'd like it to go away. Hence, anything that awakens these fears will be downvoted as quickly as possible to avoid dealing with the cognitive dissonance and general anxiety.
- oliwarner 4y agoI think it attracts downvotes because people come to such big conclusions from such a tiny question. In what way do they mean okay? Are we talking permissive, morality, or just a TripAdvisor review? Do you find being white is okay? Not content with reading the worst into it, you've gone on to add directionality. It's getting worse?! They're coming for us! Or they think it's increasingly hard being white. Or both and we'll never know because it's a shitty question. Please stop. Extrapolating from bad polling is harmful.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- faeriechangling 4y agoHow is anti-white sentiment “obviously growing”? Compared to what baseline? I actually had the opposite impression and feel people are chilling out somewhat compared to say 3 years ago when Trump was in office and George Floyd just happened.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- roenxi 4y agoThis is probably a good time to recall that polling in politics can be highly misleading. I recall an excellent segment on Yes, Minister that explains it [0, 1]. We really need to know the other questions they were being asked at the time to see if they were primed in some way. A near majority being uncomfortable with white people would be outrageous, but Americans are usually pretty tolerant so it is likely that Rasmussen is playing games here. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA [1] https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=yes-prime-minister-1986&episode=s01e02 https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_script... - For people who like text, search for "Have another opinion poll done"
- scythe 4y agoIt's not a near majority. Only 26% responded "no" (likely due to being mired in the media furor over this meme), another 21% responded "not sure", which is probably the basic human response when you think "what kind of stupid question is that?!". If someone asked me "is it okay to be white?", my first thought would be that they are trying to sell me something, or simply up to no good.
- roenxi 4y agoIf someone's answer to a plain "is it OK to be white?" is hemming, hawing and thinking hard then they aren't comfortable with white people. But it is unlikely that near 50% of the surveyed population are that racist, so it is probably polling trickery.
- radiator 4y agoYou get quite a lot of downvotes around here, just for quoting facts.
- dwaltrip 4y agoSomething being true doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best thing to say. There’s an infinite number of things one could say. Might as well try to make the words count for something.
- freejazz 4y agoWoof - the tweets that scroll once you read that post. Wow.
- faeriechangling 4y ago53:21 so less than a third, Scott Adams counting “not sures” as somehow nefarious is some bias analysis. Doesn’t seem so shocking to me and it doesn’t make me want to change how I act day to day, especially because the people who popularized that phrase were so controversial that people might be having less of an issue with the sentiment of “it’s okay to be white” itself and instead might have an issue which how those posters were put up with razor blades behind them by literal white supremacists which injured innocent janitors. There’s a lot of confounding factors and the exact phrasing is politically loaded so it makes for a lousy barometer of black attitudes towards white people.
- rodney3314 4y ago[flagged]
- shrimp_emoji 4y ago>The Dilbert guy is stupid. And people who think it’s not okay to be white are being stupid. The people polled have, statistically, an abysmal level of education and socioeconomic circumstances. The Dilbert guy has way less of an excuse. :p Although he's probably being purposely provocative: https://youtu.be/fYXkMieE0CA?t=962 https://youtu.be/fYXkMieE0CA?t=962
- dhanna 4y agoWhat’s this guys deal? In my head, he’s been salty ever since he got dropped from UPN because they wanted to make money off of black people.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- andsoitis 4y agoI read through his Wikipedia page and based on it it seems like in recent years he’s made quite a shift in his opinions that I can’t tell are for effect / satire or whether he’s changed his point of view in a rational way or whether he’s becoming unhinged. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Adams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Adams
- brainzap 4y agogrowing older most men undergo change in hormones, and viewpoint
- maksimur 4y agoI don't know how it works for others but this happened to me many times already. I went from being an extreme-right teenager to an extreme-left young adult and feel like I'm going through a moderate stage right now. I wonder how much my viewpoint will change decades from now.
- Hyption 4y agoStarting uneducated right and moving more educated left and settling middle is something I would say shows growth. You know when you hear gay for the first time and find it weird and perhaps dirty, realizing that it isn't and that it doesn't concern me either. Or traveling and understanding the world better.
- freejazz 4y agoUnfortunately, it seems to be having the opposite effect on Adams.
- adamrezich 4y agohis whole schtick is that he says polarizing things and then when everyone reacts to what he says at face value then haha, he got you, he wins, you're being persuaded. or something. basically he has a lot of money and fame so he trolls different political groups and everyone has forgotten what authenticity looks like so they take what he says at face value even though he really quite obviously rarely says anything with a completely straight face... then later he can completely walk anything he said back because he "learned new information". but in the meantime, others (like this organization) grift off his grift by reacting to it at face value. nobody really cares about the issues being discussed, it's all just clickbait/grifting, but everyone rolls with it, because this is what passes as intellectual discourse anymore: trolling, and taking trolling at face value and reacting thusly. it's pathetic.
- jmclnx 4y agoWell if you need to replace it, I would suggest Sherman's Lagoon :) https://www.gocomics.com/shermanslagoon https://www.gocomics.com/shermanslagoon But yes, his comments do seem very concerning to me.
- secondcoming 4y agoThat's less funny than Garfield
- lukewrites 4y agoEverything is.
- Raed667 4y agoIf the alt-right dog whistle isn't convincing enough for you and you think he is just being edgy/contrarian, I suggest you listen to a couple of minutes of his rant and see the unhinged racism he is spewing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6TnAn7qV1s&t=816s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6TnAn7qV1s&t=816s
- teddyh 4y agoYou link to the video, but (as I can’t watch a video right now) can you quote (and explain) the “unhinged racism”?
- suprjami 4y agoYou can watch in the YouTube app with no volume and captions turned on, it's just like reading. Or you could read the article which quotes a couple of things.
- shrimp_emoji 4y agoHe is shocked that about 47% of black Americans polled allegedly responded to the question "Is it okay to be white?" with either "Not sure" or "No" (roughly split down the middle of the 47%). He reacts to this with a resolution to cease his allegedly long campaign of "helping black people". As a result of the poll, he'll also cease to identify as black (which he says he has because he thought it's fitting to identify as the group he's helped for so long), considering black people a "hate group" if nearly half of them do not believe it's okay to be white. He also recommends that, if you're white, you should try to "get the hell away" from black people, citing the example of his moving to a predominantly white neighborhood. He says "there's no fixing this", suggesting helping black people is a lost cause. He defines "help" as "give you a hand; mentor you; hire you; prefer you", saying he'll "stop all of that" and that it won't work. He concludes the only thing that works is "fixing your own problem", like "everyone else" has, refusing to speculate why there's a difference in the extent to which various groups have done so. He ends with mentioning seeing a "black person beating the shit out of some white person" on social media "every damn day" and that he's "over it", refusing to align with "any group", whether "white supremacists" or "black racists".
- bobby_bbb 4y agoI think his point is that racism in this country right now primarily exists because it drives votes and so is encouraged by vote-seekers. I think he's correct, but he's being too cute by half in his approach. Subtlety doesn't work well for this issue.
- DowsingSpoon 4y ago[flagged]
- freejazz 4y ago> racism in this country right now primarily exists because it drives votes as opposed to people just actually being racist or what?
- trieste92 4y agoWhy are people trying to read some bullshit ulterior motives out of what this guy is doing? He knows what he's doing. There's nothing "clever" about it. Someone talks about these things in this kind of way, it's clear as day what their intentions are Seeing the people here trying to read "subtlety" out of this fuck is infuriating
- jshaqaw 4y agoRemember when Adams was telling the world that he was a demigod of hypnosis persuasion and whatnot in the early Trump period? The guy has been seriously unhinged for a long time no doubt made much worse by the ability of uber-rich dudes to surround themselves with sycophants.
- trieste92 4y ago> The guy has been seriously unhinged for a long time no doubt made much worse by the ability of uber-rich dudes to surround themselves with sycophants. Kanye 2.0
- moronicQ 4y ago[dead]
- davidehnis 4y ago[flagged]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- erik_seaberg 4y ago> I hate to quote him at all, but I do so to dissuade responses that this is a “cancel culture” decision. “The comic sucks now” would have been an editorial decision about the content. “Here’s a terrible thing the author said somewhere else” is cancel culture. It’s not as if all the readers know or care who draws this.
- eyelidlessness 4y agoTo the extent this is an appropriate definition of “cancel culture”, it’s also a perfect demonstration that complaints about “cancel culture” are essentially “grievance culture”. There is nothing wrong with the editorial staff of a news publisher making editorial decisions based on the values they want the publication to represent. Even if that decision is not based on the content they may or may not publish. This is and has always been the logical conclusion of the very confused “free speech vs cancel culture” position: everything is permissible… except anyone or any organization having the temerity to choose who they wish to associate with, even if that’s an express purpose of their role.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- marcusverus 4y ago> complaints about “cancel culture” are essentially “grievance culture”. Where does the “grievance” come into play? Opponents of cancel culture are just saying that people shouldn’t be fired for wrongthink.
- ModernMech 4y agoBut no one is being fired here. An editor is making an editorial decision. Sounds like maybe you don’t like the decision but so what? You can start your own paper and make your own decisions that others can disagree with. Adams will continue being a multimillionaire who gets to speak his mind to his followers. Everyone is exercising their first amendment rights. So what’s the problem?
- 4y ago
- 0xbadc0de5 4y agoTwo minutes of hate for Emmanuel Goldstein! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Minutes_Hate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Minutes_Hate) Hate is ugly, regardless of who holds it and who it's directed to. That includes you, angry mob. To paraphrase - hate is an acid that does more harm to its vessel than to anything on which it is poured. These sorts of flame-bait articles don't belong on HN.
- trieste92 4y ago"satire" isn't a defense for this guy There's this trend: people say awful, transgressive shit and then say "oh we were only kidding" Also there's another trend: megalomaniac celebrities falling off the far right deep end and saying progressively crazier shit I don't remember it being this bad in the early 2010s. It's only getting worse. Young people see this and it becomes more normalized, they become more desensitized to hate. Politicians come in and funnel this hate into legislation. I can't see this heading in a positive direction
- Balgair 4y agoAside: When's the last time you even read the the comics on a regular basis? I have family that I had to stay with last year for an extended period. They are older, so they still get the news, and so I read the comics just like what was left of the paper (let's agree to table the discussion of newspapers for now?). Like, the comics have really gone places. Sally Forth has a multi-dimensional Marvel tie-in now with a lot of beards? What the hell happened with Prince Valient? Dilbert is/was still stuck in the early 2000's office culture and had really nothing to do about crypto or any of the other crazy. Garfield got a lot more boring, something I never thought possible. Peanuts somehow is still around 22 years after Schultz died, how!? Where the crap is the modern replacement/spiritual-sucessor comic for Calvin and Hobbes? It's been 28 years guys! For Better or Worse is gone? When?! I know time moves on, and in strange ways, but what the hell happened to the funnies, man?
- reaperducer 4y agoAside: When's the last time you even read the the comics on a regular basis I do. Every day.
- Balgair 4y agoYeah, awesome! So what happened to the funnies in the last 15 years?
- reaperducer 4y agoLike any other written work, comics are a reflection of their author, the author's views, and society. Combine that with the ability of newspapers to pick and choose the comics that reflect their readers' interests, and it's natural to see change over time. Also, while the characters in comic strips are ageless, their authors do age and change, and this shows up in the panels in subtle ways. Sally Forth is one of a number of comics whose authors have gotten so deep into naval-gazing and re-hashing the same old story lines year after year that they're in a death spiral. For SF, in particular, it seems to have gone off the rails about five years ago. It's neither funny, nor insightful. It's just a lot of words words words with little actual content. I never understood Prince Valiant. Maybe once a month I'll look at it to see if the story is at a point where I can jump in, but I never know what's going on. Dilbert got stale, and its author fell into the naval-gazing death spiral, too. See also: Crankshaft, Luann, and Candorville. Garfield is boring, but it always was. For better or worse, it remains light entertainment, and there's nothing wrong with that. Schultz died, and what you see now are re-runs of his old strips. In some newspapers, the title has been changed to Best of Peanuts, or Classic Peanuts. But some just kept the title Peanuts. I don't think there could be a modern version of Calvin and Hobbes. Society has become too touchy. Too angry. Too opinionated. Too closed-minded. If anyone tried to re-capture what once was C&H, they'd be pilloried on social media for imaginary crimes. See also: Bloom County. Red & Rover could be a contender, but it's more nostalgic than clever. For Better or Worse has been in reruns for a very long time. Its content has always been so milquetoast that I didn't even notice it until you brought it up just now. Also in a death spiral: Ziggy. Same three gags over and over. Breaking Cat News. Zits. B.C. is also the same gags over and over, but somehow it's not so bad. At least it's not angry. Get Fuzzy is good, though it's still sometimes strange. Also, Pearls Before Swine. They're only good, but still the best strips out there. Donesberry has mellowed out, and is more readable than it has been in a long time. I don't think there are any "great" strips anymore. But looking through my Sunday papers today, these are ones I find OK: Baby Blues, Hi & Lois, Baldo, F Minus, Wumo, Rhymes with Orange, Mutts, Argyle Sweater, Drabble, Mother Goose and Grimm, Pickles, The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee. Somehow I still find Blondie and Hagar delightful, and it sometimes manages to work in new topics. The problem with comic strips is the same problem that all of comedy has: Society is ruining comedy. Big-name comedians like Seinfeld will tell you that it's just not fun anymore. People go from zero to machine gun in the time it takes to spit out one joke. Nobody has any sense of humor anymore. Everyone has to be offended about everything, or they don't know they exist. Can you imagine what would happen if some of the first or second season of SNL were re-aired on NBC, or one of the Dean Martin TV roasts? People would burn down the Comcast building. Can you imagine Richard Prior or Red Foxx doing a set on a college campus? Mass hysteria. People need to get over themselves. They've forgotten "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me."