Left proves Dilbert’s point

by Don Surber

Chris Quinn, editor of the Plain Dealer, dropped the Dilbert comic strip this week, drawing cheers from the all-whites-are-racist crowd. He cited a podcast of Dilbert creator Scott Adams.
 
Quinn wrote, “Adams said Black people are a hate group, citing a recent Rasmussen survey which, he said, shows nearly half of all Black people do not agree with the phrase ‘It’s okay to be white.’”
 
The poll actually said 53% agree, 26% disagree and 21% were not sure. One-quarter of black people saying it is not okay to be white shows way too much racism.
 
Adams said, “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.”
 
Segregation is making a comeback, long after America achieved racial equality, thanks to race hustlers like Al Sharpton, Joy Reid and Barack “If I Had A Son He’d Look Like Trayvon” Obama.
 
Harvard’s hometown is a leader in advocating the separation of races. The city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, published on August 9, 2018, “Why People of Color Need Spaces Without White People,” written by Kelsey Blackwell. She said:

“If your community is mostly white, it is not by accident. Do your work, get real, look at the places you’ve been avoiding. Ask another white person the question you’ve been unsure about asking. See how you’re perpetuating the system of institutional racism; we all are. Become intimately familiar with your role. Explore the places within yourself that you hold back. Can you be yourself a little more? You do this work and people of color will naturally want to engage with you. Why? Because through feeling and exploring your ignorance you’ve created a genuine opening for my reality.
 
“Stepping into this unknown means carving out space for my existence.
 
“Breathing.
 
“These words are shared not to shock or offend but in kindness—as an offering of my own fullness and genuine aspirations for my community. I hope to create an opening for honest conversation. I hope to bring more understanding and support through the sangha for the importance of these spaces. I hope in hearing me other people of color will be heard.
 
“What happens in PoC spaces? Anything we want—and this is the beauty of them. We can be sources for our own nourishment and resilience. Why wouldn’t an ally be in support of this? My friend recently said, ‘We don’t need allies (i.e., friends); we need accomplices (i.e., partners in crime).’ I couldn’t agree more. The act of supporting people of color is one of subversion. We are subverting white cultural conditioning. These are the values that fuel our institutions and organizations; they fuel our social hierarchy and how we self-identify. Undermining this conditioning requires fierceness and bravery.”

It is okay for a black woman to tell black people to live away from whites. And they should keep whites out of their neighborhoods. It is science!
 
Stanford News reported on December 1, 2020, “Stanford professor’s study finds gentrification disproportionately affects minorities.
 
“Disadvantaged residents from predominately Black neighborhoods have fewer options in face of gentrification.”
 
Adams should have couched his preference as encouraging blacks for their own protection to avoid whites because to say it the other way — as he did — is considered a hate crime. Wording matters.
 
Quinn wrote of Adams, “He says a lot more in the video, mostly hateful and racist, all viewable on You Tube. It’s a staggering string of statements, all but certain to result in the loss of his livelihood. I hate to quote him at all, but I do so to dissuade responses that this is a ‘cancel culture’ decision.”
 
Of course, what Quinn did was a perfect example of the cancel culture. A man offends a group — in this case, white men who capitalize black — and loses his livelihood.
 
Adams knew what he was doing. He no longer relies on newspapers to earn a living because newspapers keep dying. Being canceled improved his brand by making him a victim of censors. He mocked Quinn, tweeting, “I just learned Cleveland has a newspaper.”
 
Quinn fancies himself as a defender of the First Amendment despite trying to censor someone who said something he did not agree with. As newspapers die they serve their liberal masters — even though most subscribers are people in traditional families (hence the term home delivery) who tend to be conservative.
 
Christopher Kelly, editor of another newspaper in the chain that owns the Cleveland paper, joined him, writing, “Earlier this week, Scott Adams, the creator of the comic strip Dilbert, espoused disturbing, dangerous, and racist views on his You Tube show Real Coffee with Scott Adams.”
 
Kelly is in New Jersey, home of Bruce Springsteen who wrote Blinded By The Light. He wasn’t referring to the virtue being signaled but I am.
 
USA Today also stopped carrying Dilbert. Ditto the Washington Post. All the newspapers in America can, but they can never cancel Dilbert because he is online, where the action is. He gets 3.8 million visits a month.
 
Quinn is confused about free speech. Cleveland Scene, a local entertainment and politics weekly that has been around for 50 years, reported in April, “PD Editor Chris Quinn Gets to Be Hero of Journalism for Doing Same Shit He Dragged Reporters for Doing.”
 
The Scene story said, “Quinn was so aghast, so livid with shock, at the restrictive rules imposed by the rally organizers, the pro-Trump GOP youth group Turning Point Action, that he sent no reporters to cover the event in protest. His column has now been approvingly shared on social media thousands of times, by supporters and national journalism personalities who cheer on what they regard as a heroic stance against the forces of Fascism.”
 
But the Scene pointed out that Quinn earlier supported Mayor Frank Jackson who imposed the same rules against the press talking to people in the audience for his State of the City address. The editor publicly castigated his own reporters for not seeking clarification of the mayor’s order.
 
Quinn said, “They should’ve made the phone call because what they did was pretty shoddy journalism in the name of good journalism. It’s not a small point today. The media is under siege, from the president and elsewhere. We need to do our job to be accurate. And in this case, the word was spread that this horrible police state was being formed, and a simple phone call would have proven that’s not the case.”
 
Why didn’t he make the three-minute phone call? He’s the editor. Of course, his publisher does not want to have any trouble with the mayor. Rare is the newspaper that fights city hall these days.
 
Why didn’t he back Adams’s right to say stuff others do not agree with? In the First Amendment, free speech comes before freedom of the press.
 
Freedom of religion is first on the list because this nation was founded on religious freedom. The British sent to America their dissidents who did not adhere to the official state religion, which sometimes was Catholic but usually was Protestant depending on who was king or queen.
 
Angela Davis and I thank them for that because England sent our ancestors here in a tiny wooden ship called the Mayflower.

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