The distributor of the Dilbert comic strip announced Sunday that it is cutting ties with the cartoon’s creator, Scott Adams, after he called African-Americans a “hate group.”
Andrews McMeel Universal released a statement on Twitter in the names of the company’s chairman, Hugh Andrews, and CEO and president, Andy Sareyan, saying they were “severing our relationship” with Adams in the wake of his “recent comments.”
Hours later, Adams tweeted that his publisher “for non-Dilbert books” has put the kibosh on an upcoming book and his “entire backlist.”
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“Still no disagreement about my point of view,” he claimed. “My book agent canceled me too.”
In a Feb. 22 video uploaded on his Real Coffee with Scott Adams YouTube video, the cartoonist discussed a recent Rasmussen Reports survey that asked people if they agreed with the statement: “It’s OK to be white”—a phrase the Anti-Defamation League deemed to be a hate slogan popularized by 4chan trolls in late 2017.
While most of the respondents nevertheless agreed with the statement, Adams pointed to the fact that 26 percent of Black respondents disagreed and others were unsure as proof that African-Americans constitute a “hate group.”
“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,” Adams said in the video. “Just get the fuck away. Wherever you have to go, just get away. Because there’s no fixing this. This can’t be fixed.”
The 65-year-old author said in another video Saturday that he had been attempting to argue that “everyone should be treated as an individual,” before adding: “But you should also avoid any group that doesn’t respect you, even if there are people within the group who are fine.”
Hundreds of newspapers dumped Dilbert—which started in 1989 and satirizes office life—over Adams’ remarks. In an article over the weekend announcing that it too had dropped the cartoon, The Washington Post asked Adams how many newspapers still carried his strip. “By Monday, around zero,” Adams answered.
On Sunday evening, McMeel Universal released its statement announcing the end of its ties with Adams. “As a media and communications company, AMU values free speech,” the statement read. “We are proud to promote and share many different voices and perspectives. But we will never support any commentary rooted in discrimination or hate. Recent comments by Scott Adams regarding race and race relations do not align with our core values as a company.”
Despite the widespread condemnation of Adams’ comments, Elon Musk instead took a different view and attacked media coverage of the row. “The media is racist,” the Twitter CEO wrote over the weekend. “For a *very* long time, US media was racist against non-white people, now they’re racist against whites & Asians,” he added. “Same thing happened with elite colleges & high schools in America. Maybe they can try not being racist.”
