Scott Adams, the creator of the popular newspaper comic Dilbert, said “The best advice I can give to white people is get the hell away from Black people,” in a video message that’s being widely circulated online.
Adams’ comments came from a livestream posted to his YouTube channel, “Real Coffee with Scott Adams.” He was responding to a poll from Rasmussen Reports about whether “It’s OK to be white.”
The poll presented the following questions: “Do you agree or disagree with this statement: ‘It’s OK to be white,'” and “Do you agree or disagree with this statement: ‘Black people can be racist, too.'”
The part of the survey that Adams seems to be cherry picking from is that 53% of black people surveyed said it is indeed OK. He seemed to focus on the ones who didn’t, and called them a “hate group.” There’s a lot of mental jujitsu going on here. Adams is using a small, inaccurate polling company (more on that in a minute) to back up his clearly racist beliefs.
This would not be as notable if he weren’t the creator of one of the most beloved comic book strips of all time. These comments are… well, they’re not great.
“So if nearly half of all Blacks are not OK with white people, according to this poll, not according to me, that’s a hate group. That’s a hate group and I don’t want anything to do with them. And 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. Just get the f**k away.”
So there’s no other way to take that than what it is: Pretty damn racist. He continues: “Where ever you have to go just get away. ‘Cause there’s no fixing this. This can’t be fixed. You just have to escape.”
Where exactly are people like Adam’s supposed to escape to? He explains this as well. “So that’s what I did. I went to a neighborhood with a very low Black population.”
There is more, but do we really need to hear more? But back to the Rasmussen Poll. There’s a little bit of history here as to why this company isn’t the most reliable when it comes to polling. The poll incorrectly stated that Joe Biden and Donald Trump were in a virtual tie during the past Presidential election, when Biden was 4 points ahead. You could mark that up to margin of error, sure.
However, the poll was almost 10 percentage points off during the midterms, the largest polling error out of all polling firms at the time. Rasmussen Reports said Republicans would win the ballot by one point, and they lost by nine. I’m pointing this out to illustrate that people like Adams like to hide behind things like polling numbers to mask hateful beliefs.
Obviously, people are not happy about this. Distressingly, others are. Here’s a response from one side.
And the other, just in case you needed reminding — or alerting — that this messaging exists on Twitter.
God Bless America.