Beginning this Sunday, readers of the otherwise somewhat anachronistic Washington Post comics section will miss two of their most iconic appearances: those of the perplexed office worker Dilbert and his dog. The newspaper has decided to terminate the contract with its creator, cartoonist Scott Adams, following comments broadcast live on YouTube last Wednesday, in which Adams said the black community in the United States is “a hate group.” educated and that whites would do better to “get away from them”.
The Washington Post is not alone in its decision. It was also adopted by hundreds of other newspapers in which Dilbert published, from the Los Angeles Times to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, in addition to the 200 or so newspapers that are still part of the Garnett Communications Group, publisher of USA Today. and small titles and medians across the country. The list includes media such as the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Detroit Free Press, the Indianapolis Star, the Austin American-Statesman and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Adams, 65, created the 1989 film, set in an unspecified office, a dystopian backdrop for the ideological tribulations of what they call Corporate America.
In the video, the cartoonist said, “When almost half of all black people disagree with white people… it makes them a hate group. I don’t want anything to do with them. And I’d say the best advice I would give white people right now is to stay away from black people… because there’s no possible solution.” “I’m also tired of seeing videos where black Americans aren’t- beat up black citizens,” he added.
The cartoonist was apparently aware of the consequences his words could have for him. Post reporters covering the story of his firing asked him Saturday how many newspapers Dilbert had published in, to which Adams replied. “Until Monday comes [por mañana], plus or minus zero. In good times, the answer to that question would have been, “About two thousand headers.”
The Mark Zuckerberg founder faced a Dilbert strip in the United States Congress in 2018. Andrew Harnik (AP)
In another live broadcast on Saturday, Adams predicted that “most” of his earnings “will be gone next week.” “My reputation for the rest of my life is shattered. You can’t come back from this, right? There’s no way to go back after something like that.”
“With Dilbert, Adams elevated the manual nerd to the category of the absolute protagonist of the alienation that defines the cabin of a vast office,” declared this Sunday University of Valencia professor Álvaro Pons, one of the great experts on comics in Spain , the country in which the strip aired on some local media in the 1990s. “A decade ago [la serie] The Dilbert office became a phenomenon, capitalizing on the emerging possibilities of the internet, that pioneering usenet news that preceded social networks to go well beyond press impact and become the benchmark for the emerging group of professionals in the new technologies. He and his megalomaniac dog, Dogbert, filled employee whiteboards with a clever irony that quickly deflated and turned into a well-oiled merchandising moneymaker.”
The decision to forego the author’s services was made by the Washington newspaper on Saturday and explained by a spokesman for the company, which is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, “given recent statements promoting segregation”. The order was placed immediately, which did not prevent a Dilbert, who was last for the time being, from slipping into a few copies of the print edition on Sunday. On the Post’s website, the cantankerous clerk has completely disappeared.
In the Los Angeles Times, which released a statement showing a controversial flick has been returned to Adams four times in the past nine months for not meeting “standards,” the responsiveness won’t be as sudden: “It will be suspended in most editions from Monday. But because [la edición del domingo de la sección] Sunday Comics is going to print early, Dilbert will last appear in the paper on March 12.”
It’s not the first time the cartoonist has starred in one of these. Last year, the San Francisco Chronicle and 76 other newspapers published by Lee Enterprises removed the Dilbert strip when Adams introduced his first black character, saying it was done to mock “awakened culture.”
Adams posted a poll on his Twitter on Sunday with the following message: “True or false: The media promoted a resurgence in racial segregation and then canceled me for pointing out the obvious implications of their evil work.”
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