'Racism has pervaded our society': Sun Chronicle leaving 'Dilbert' space blank in protest
BOSTON - In the last few days, the long-running comic strip "Dilbert" has disappeared from newspapers across the country. Publishers dropped the strip after its creator, Scott Adams, went on a racist rant on YouTube.
Adams was touting a new poll by the right-wing polling firm Rasmussen Reports that floated a white supremacist theme about whether it's "ok to be white," to which some Black respondents answered "no."
"According to this poll that's a hate group," said Adams. "The best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from Black people, just get the (obscenity) away. Wherever you have to go just get away cause there's no fixing this."
That segregationist rhetoric got Adams fired by his syndicator, his book publisher, and, hundreds of newspapers, including the Boston Globe and the Attleboro Sun Chronicle, where executive editor Craig Borges found Adams' remarks to be "pretty textbook examples of racism." Dropping "Dilbert," he says, is "free speech at work. He had his free speech and I chose to exercise mine. If he wants to start his own newspaper he certainly can, but I'm not gonna support a racist."
Adams is now busy appearing on conservative media to claim victimhood, a popular concept at Rasmussen, where head pollster Mark Mitchell offered this analysis the survey results: "White adults are much more likely to say it's ok to be white, which I think is very telling considering how much effort has been put into convincing white Americans that it isn't ok."
For the next month, Borges and his paper will be using the empty Dilbert space to make a counter-argument -- that the bigotry of Adams and his fans is the real problem.
"I felt we should make a statement," says Borges. "I'm leaving the strip blank for the entire month. We have this as a reminder of how racism has pervaded our society."
Borges said just a handful of readers have complained about his decision, one he says was an easy call. He told WBZ: "In the media, all you have going for you is your integrity. Nothing will kill you quicker than losing your integrity."
That's a lesson Scott Adams has just learned the hard way, if, in fact, he's learned it at all.
