Dilbert Goes Dark

By: Dominic Cacchione, Managing Editor

Once loved comic strip gets axed over creator’s bigoted behaviors

Several newspapers have opted to pull comic strip Dilbert from their publications following a racist rant from creator Scott Adams. The 33-year-old comic strip is known to poke fun at office culture, remaining one of the most recognizable serialized comics in newspapers for decades.

A week prior to this article, Dilbert creator Scott Adams uploaded a video on his Youtube channel, “Real Coffee With Scott Adams,” in which he described black people as a “hate group”, saying he would “no longer help black Americans”. He adds that his “advice to white people” is to “get the hell away from black people”.

These statements were spurred by a survey asking whether or not people agreed with the statement “It’s OK to be white.” Most respondents agreed, but Adams noted that 26% of black respondents voted “no,” while others weren’t sure.

He took to Twitter to defend his statements, largely blaming Democrats for creating a “racial divide” in the first place. However, his logic behind this defense comes off as confusing at best, considering he is actively encouraging further racial division thinly disguised as “advice”.

Unfortunately, this isn’t an isolated incident. Adams has a long history of bigoted remarks, many of which stem from his hypocritical belief in white victimhood. He often scapegoats the black community for his own shortcomings. 

In a Tweet from June 2020, he claims that he lost his animated Dilbert primetime TV show after two seasons for “being white”. In January 2022, he joked in a Tweet that he would “self-identify as a black woman until Biden picks his Supreme Court nominee.”

His bigotry extends to women too, as noted by a 2011 comment of his stating that women are treated differently by society for the same reason children and the mentally disabled are. He states that “it’s just easier this way for everyone.”

A few more Dilbert strips have yet to be published. Since newspaper strips are scheduled ahead of time, the series is effectively dead. After a nearly 34 year run, it seems that it’s time for Dilbert to clear out his desk.