The Passion of Scott Adams

By Roger Kimball

How do you imagine the woke beast? It is rough, surely, and slouches towards some unprofitable venue, so not Bethlehem.
 
I think of it as something ravenous but episodic in its appetites, a sort of Polyphemus for hire. It gorges in a destructive frenzy and then retreats to some dank corner to belch and sleep and slobber. The world, appalled by the spectacle of its rampage, instantly begins making excuses for its viciousness—were not its victims somehow to blame? Then forgetfulness spreads its enervating fog and the Zeitgeist enjoins us to put it all behind us because, after all, what difference at this point does it make™?
 
I thought about the habits of the woke beast this week when the popular cartoonist and social commentator Scott Adams found himself caught in its masticating maw. When it comes to practitioners of his craft and sullen art, few can be more innocuous than Scott Adams. He is best known as the creator of Dilbert, a comic casualty of modern office bureaucracy. Adams also runs a subscription video podcast in which he drinks coffee and comments on current events. It was a 30- or 40-second bit of the latter that awakened the woke beast and set him on his latest rampage.
 
Several days ago, the internet exploded with the news that Adams had gone on a “racist rant” during the show. That script must have been cleared with the woke committee central office because nearly every report I saw (and there were many) described Adams’ comments as a “rant” (CNN added the word “tirade”). But was it? The offending passage begins about 13 minutes into this episode.
 
But it wasn’t a rant. My dictionary defines “rant” as “violent, loud, or extravagant speech.” It’s a matter of tone, and volume. What Adams delivered was more or less the opposite of a rant. It was sad, to be sure, but also understated and mannerly, things that no rant worth of the title would be caught dead embodying.
 
Adams notes that he had been in the habit of identifying as black because he wanted to do what he could to help black people. A recent poll from Rasmussen changed his mind. To the question “Is it OK to be white” nearly half the black respondents answered “no, it is not OK to be white” or said they were uncertain.
 
Adams was taken aback by the results of this poll. Among other things, it suggested that racism was not a white monopoly, as we have been taught to believe. If a large percentage of black people assent to the proposition, Adams reasoned, then that means that a large percentage of black people are racist. And, as we have also been taught, if you are racist, that means you are part of a “hate group.”
 
Adams said he did not want to be part of a hate group. Ergo, he revised his earlier position. Now, instead of identifying as black and doing what he could to help black people, he advises whites to withdraw. Of course, you should be “friendly,” he stressed. But “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.”
 
Oh, the howls of outrage that comment elicited! The woke beast was awake and on the prowl. “Dilbert has been cancelled from all newspapers, websites, calendars, and books,” Adams said. Why? “Because I gave some advice everyone agreed with. (My syndication partner canceled me.)”
 
Once whetted, the appetite of the woke beast is insatiable. A day or two later, Adams reported, “My publisher for non-Dilbert books has canceled my upcoming book and the entire backlist. Still no disagreement about my point of view. My book agent canceled me too.”`
 
It is true, by the way, that “everyone agrees” with the point that Adams made. Everyone knows it is true. But no one is supposed to admit that it is true. Adams made it all worse by observing that “There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps . . . then turn around and see somebody white and feel relieved.” Oh, wait. I got my notes confused. That wasn’t Scott Adams. That was the professional black Jesse Jackson in 1993.
 
Thirty years ago, some embryo of woke commentators anguished over Jackson’s comment, decrying it as “racist.” And of course it was racist. It implicitly acknowledged the uncomfortable truth that the vast majority of violent crime is committed by blacks. Every study confirms this. Every liberal ignores it or seeks to explain it away.

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