Scott Adams‘ racist rant has resulted in the “Dilbert” cartoonist losing his deal with syndication partner Andrews McMeel Universal.
In a statement late Sunday, Andrews McMeel said it was “severing our relationship” with Adams, which the company originally struck in 2011, including “all areas of our business with Adams and the ‘Dilbert’ comic strip.”
“As a media and communications company, AMU values free speech,” the statement from chairman Hugh Andrews and president/CEO Andy Sareyan said. “But we will never support any commentary rooted in discrimination or hate. Recent comments by Scott Adams regarding race and race relations do not align with our core values as a company.”
The announcement from Andrews McMeel came after dozens of newspapers said they were suspending publication of “Dilbert” because of Adams’s anti-Black tirade last week, including the Washington Post, the L.A. Times, the Boston Globe and Cleveland’s Plain Dealer.
On Monday, Adams tweeted that “My syndication partner canceled me” and “‘Dilbert’ has been cancelled from all newspapers, websites, calendars and books because I gave some advice everyone agreed with.”
On the Feb. 22 episode of his YouTube show, Adams cited a recent survey by conservative polling company Rasmussen Reports that found only 53% of Black people surveyed agreed with the statement “It’s okay to be white.” The Anti-Defamation League haslabeled the phrase a “hate symbol”that was popularized in late 2017 as a trolling campaign on 4chan.
“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 fuck away,” Adams said on the YouTube show. “Wherever you have to go, just get away. Because there’s no fixing this. This can’t be fixed. So I don’t think it makes any sense as a white citizen of America to try to help Black citizens anymore. It doesn’t make sense. There’s no longer a rational impulse. So I’m going to back off on being helpful to Black America because it doesn’t seem like it pays off.”
