3 ms·

Newspapers have dropped the 'Dilbert' comic strip after creator's racist rant

21 points by mhb 4y ago

ofirg 4y ago
I am not having fun.
- rideontime 4y ago
  Why should you be?
rideontime 4y ago
Accidentally used his human-audible whistle instead of his dogwhistles. Anybody who's been paying attention to him knew this was bound to happen eventually.
ycombinete 4y ago
Who would respond “no” to the question, “is it OK to be white”!?
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Racists? Only group I can see who would say that. Or maybe they have some other agenda to drive...
- mcphage 4y ago
  Someone who isn’t white, for whom the entire question is meaningless. Like Chomsky’s “colorless green ideas sleep furiously”, it’s a bunch of words which are arranged in a syntactically correct manner yet don’t hat arrangement has no meaning.
BaculumMeumEst 4y ago
> By telephone and online, the group surveyed a thousand American adults, with this question: "Do you agree or disagree with this statement, 'It's OK to be white'?" The report found that 72% of the respondents agreed, including 53% who are Black I have to be honest and say this unsettles me a little. The rebuttal I’ve seen is that “it’s okay to be white” is a racist meme from 4chan, which invalidates the results. But that seems to suggests that all the respondents were aware that it’s a racist catchphrase. I spend a lot of time on the internet, and I wasn’t aware. Further, 72% of the total respondents responded in the affirmative- is the theory that these respondents were not aware of the racist connotation?
- joemazerino 4y ago
  Labeling every counter signal a dog whistle is a far-left tactic to discredit valid arguments. Ignore them.
- Volundr 4y ago
  I would be very torn on how to respond to a survey that asked me if I agree with "All lives matter". On the face it's clearly a true statement, almost tautological, but it's commonly used with tons of subtext I disagree with. Let's say for a moment everyone feels exactly like me, and a poll get a 50/50 split. Or 25/75. Or 90/10. You haven't really learned anything about people's attitudes beyond how literally they chose to interpret the question. That's what people are saying with this question. It's too loaded for a simple yes no. Saying the 72% who agreed aren't aware of the connotation is just an invalid conclusion as any other. No doubt at least some of them pondered it, and decided to respond to the literal text. There's too much gray here to draw ANY conclusions from the poll.
  - BaculumMeumEst 4y ago
    thanks for the perspective
- rsynnott 4y ago
  > But that seems to suggests that all the respondents were aware that it’s a racist catchphrase > Further, 72% of the total respondents responded in the affirmative- is the theory that these respondents were not aware of the racist connotation? I... think you're answering your own question? Let's assume the simplest case, where everyone who thinks the phrase is innocent answers yes, and everyone who's aware of the context of the phrase answers no. In that case, if 28% of respondents are aware of the context, then the result is what you'd expect. (In practice it'll be a bit messier than that; some will know the phrase and answer yes, some won't but will answer no anyway, and frankly some will be baffled by the question, which tends to increase poll noise.) In general, this is absolutely incompetent poll design; you can't really get anything from it.
- jfengel 4y ago
  Quora has a "space" (roughly equivalent to a subreddit) called "It's OK to be White". It's full of Nazis. I don't mean Godwin's Law Nazis, or even just run-of-the-mill antisemites. I mean literal fuhrer-saluting, swastika-wearing, genocide-advocating Nazis. That's what the space is for. It has thousands of followers. That's certainly what they think "it's OK to be white" means. I'm not black and couldn't speak for what black people hear, but it doesn't surprise me that a racist catchphrase is well-known to the targets of racism and less well known outside of that. It's certainly well-known on Quora; anybody who spends significant time on that site sooner or later runs into material from that space.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tamaharbor 4y ago
[flagged]
ravenstine 4y ago
Imagine if the skin colors were reversed in this situation. I don't approve of Adams' conclusion to stay away from Black people, but if Scott were a Black man and a Rasmussen poll showed that at least 1/4 White respondents said it's not OK to be Black, how do you think NPR would have written their story? In addition, most surveys are junk and don't represent how people behave in the real world. Scott should know that better than most, and maybe he's taking his "I'm trying to get cancelled" thing more seriously this time.
- yuppie_scum 4y ago
  Why do you feel the need to defend a terribly racist man?
  - ravenstine 4y ago
    I'm not. NPR and most media outlets dictate public opinion and have a blatant agenda behind doing so that has nothing to do with always being factual or unbiased. Having worked for an NPR affiliate, I think I know at least something about this. Do the thought experiment again and ask yourself whether NPR has a racial bias and whether they're worth listening to.
  - ploppyploppy 4y ago
    He is not terrible person for these views. If you disagree with his views then do so with counter argument rather than the "wahh racist see now I don't have to engage" approach. Furthermore I'm sure I don't have to quote Voltaire for you
    - veec_cas_tant 4y ago
      Saying that one race should stay the hell away from another race seems pretty terrible to me, but you may have different values of course.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
joemazerino 4y ago
Take a small gander at BT (Black Twitter) and you will see a public and very hateful group of people. Towards themselves but also towards "yts". Failing to see this is nothing more than a cognitive blindspot. https://twitter.com/bipocracism https://twitter.com/bipocracism
- mcphage 4y ago
  That’s true about almost every subset of Twitter, because that’s what Twitter is. It doesn’t say anything about people who aren’t terminally online.
  - joemazerino 4y ago
    Except the legacy media only reports on one side. That's the point.
    - veec_cas_tant 4y ago
      The media generally doesn’t cover a bunch of no-lifers tweeting mean things at each other. When someone well known gets involved they generally report on that. Kanye and Kyrie were absolutely reported on. I’m sure they have tons of die hard defenders on Twitter that no one cares about though.
b1c1jones 4y ago
Good.

21 points by mhb 4y ago

ofirg 4y ago

I am not having fun.

rideontime 4y ago
Why should you be?

rideontime 4y ago

Accidentally used his human-audible whistle instead of his dogwhistles. Anybody who's been paying attention to him knew this was bound to happen eventually.

ycombinete 4y ago

Who would respond “no” to the question, “is it OK to be white”!?

Ekaros 4y ago
Racists? Only group I can see who would say that. Or maybe they have some other agenda to drive...
mcphage 4y ago
Someone who isn’t white, for whom the entire question is meaningless. Like Chomsky’s “colorless green ideas sleep furiously”, it’s a bunch of words which are arranged in a syntactically correct manner yet don’t hat arrangement has no meaning.

BaculumMeumEst 4y ago

> By telephone and online, the group surveyed a thousand American adults, with this question: "Do you agree or disagree with this statement, 'It's OK to be white'?" The report found that 72% of the respondents agreed, including 53% who are Black I have to be honest and say this unsettles me a little. The rebuttal I’ve seen is that “it’s okay to be white” is a racist meme from 4chan, which invalidates the results. But that seems to suggests that all the respondents were aware that it’s a racist catchphrase. I spend a lot of time on the internet, and I wasn’t aware. Further, 72% of the total respondents responded in the affirmative- is the theory that these respondents were not aware of the racist connotation?

joemazerino 4y ago
Labeling every counter signal a dog whistle is a far-left tactic to discredit valid arguments. Ignore them.
Volundr 4y ago
I would be very torn on how to respond to a survey that asked me if I agree with "All lives matter". On the face it's clearly a true statement, almost tautological, but it's commonly used with tons of subtext I disagree with. Let's say for a moment everyone feels exactly like me, and a poll get a 50/50 split. Or 25/75. Or 90/10. You haven't really learned anything about people's attitudes beyond how literally they chose to interpret the question. That's what people are saying with this question. It's too loaded for a simple yes no. Saying the 72% who agreed aren't aware of the connotation is just an invalid conclusion as any other. No doubt at least some of them pondered it, and decided to respond to the literal text. There's too much gray here to draw ANY conclusions from the poll.
- BaculumMeumEst 4y ago
  thanks for the perspective
rsynnott 4y ago
> But that seems to suggests that all the respondents were aware that it’s a racist catchphrase > Further, 72% of the total respondents responded in the affirmative- is the theory that these respondents were not aware of the racist connotation? I... think you're answering your own question? Let's assume the simplest case, where everyone who thinks the phrase is innocent answers yes, and everyone who's aware of the context of the phrase answers no. In that case, if 28% of respondents are aware of the context, then the result is what you'd expect. (In practice it'll be a bit messier than that; some will know the phrase and answer yes, some won't but will answer no anyway, and frankly some will be baffled by the question, which tends to increase poll noise.) In general, this is absolutely incompetent poll design; you can't really get anything from it.
jfengel 4y ago
Quora has a "space" (roughly equivalent to a subreddit) called "It's OK to be White". It's full of Nazis. I don't mean Godwin's Law Nazis, or even just run-of-the-mill antisemites. I mean literal fuhrer-saluting, swastika-wearing, genocide-advocating Nazis. That's what the space is for. It has thousands of followers. That's certainly what they think "it's OK to be white" means. I'm not black and couldn't speak for what black people hear, but it doesn't surprise me that a racist catchphrase is well-known to the targets of racism and less well known outside of that. It's certainly well-known on Quora; anybody who spends significant time on that site sooner or later runs into material from that space.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

tamaharbor 4y ago

[flagged]

ravenstine 4y ago

Imagine if the skin colors were reversed in this situation. I don't approve of Adams' conclusion to stay away from Black people, but if Scott were a Black man and a Rasmussen poll showed that at least 1/4 White respondents said it's not OK to be Black, how do you think NPR would have written their story? In addition, most surveys are junk and don't represent how people behave in the real world. Scott should know that better than most, and maybe he's taking his "I'm trying to get cancelled" thing more seriously this time.

yuppie_scum 4y ago
Why do you feel the need to defend a terribly racist man?
- ravenstine 4y ago
  I'm not. NPR and most media outlets dictate public opinion and have a blatant agenda behind doing so that has nothing to do with always being factual or unbiased. Having worked for an NPR affiliate, I think I know at least something about this. Do the thought experiment again and ask yourself whether NPR has a racial bias and whether they're worth listening to.
- ploppyploppy 4y ago
  He is not terrible person for these views. If you disagree with his views then do so with counter argument rather than the "wahh racist see now I don't have to engage" approach. Furthermore I'm sure I don't have to quote Voltaire for you
  - veec_cas_tant 4y ago
    Saying that one race should stay the hell away from another race seems pretty terrible to me, but you may have different values of course.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]

joemazerino 4y ago

Take a small gander at BT (Black Twitter) and you will see a public and very hateful group of people. Towards themselves but also towards "yts". Failing to see this is nothing more than a cognitive blindspot. https://twitter.com/bipocracism https://twitter.com/bipocracism

mcphage 4y ago
That’s true about almost every subset of Twitter, because that’s what Twitter is. It doesn’t say anything about people who aren’t terminally online.
- joemazerino 4y ago
  Except the legacy media only reports on one side. That's the point.
  - veec_cas_tant 4y ago
    The media generally doesn’t cover a bunch of no-lifers tweeting mean things at each other. When someone well known gets involved they generally report on that. Kanye and Kyrie were absolutely reported on. I’m sure they have tons of die hard defenders on Twitter that no one cares about though.

b1c1jones 4y ago

Good.