Newspapers across the country are pulling the “Dilbert” cartoon after a podcast racial rant from creator and author Scott Adams.
Adams said on his his Coffee with Scott Adams online video program that white people should “get the hell away from Black people,” labeling Blacks as a “hate group.”
The Dilbert cartoon is a satire on office politics and has been around for more than three decades. It has spawned a media empire featuring dozens of books, a video game, an animated television series, and thousands of coffee cups and related merchandise. In 1997, Adams received the National Cartoonists Society Reuben Award, its highest honor.
Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer published a Letter from the Editor Friday, stating that it was “not a difficult decision” to ax the Adams cartooon. “We are not a home for those who espouse racism,” the editor wrote. He added that Advance Media, its publisher, was instituting similar moves at its other properties.
John Hiner of MLive Media in Michigan echoed the Plain Dealer. He wrote in an editorial, “we will work quickly to find a replacement that will entertain you and not violate basic standards of decency and respect for others.”