‘Dilbert’ Comic Strip Dropped by Newspapers Over Scott Adams ‘Racist Rant’ (msn.com)
So, Scott Adams is racist. He hates, or has no patience for, African-Americans. He's not alone. There are plenty of prejudiced (racist, sexist, antisemitic, or whatever) people in the world. And Adams' advice to people who are not African-Americans is to keep a distance from African-Americans. He calls African-Americans a "hate group." Presumably, he means he thinks they're filled with hate. Like it's just part of who and what they are. It's part of their "DNA."
What he's overlooking, in his assessment of African-Americans as hate-filled, is what they're so angry about. He seems to imply, without saying it, that it's African-Americans who are prejudiced and innately hateful people. He seems to portray himself, and other Caucasians, as simply reacting to the presumably unprovoked antipathy some Caucasians say they experience from African-Americans. They're just protecting themselves from the evil that is his view of African-Americans. Or at least he advises Caucasians that they should protect themselves.
Adams seems to overlook the horrible mistreatment African-Americans have received from Caucasians in this country, for centuries. And it continues to this very day. If he had to think about that, maybe he would have to conclude that whatever he doesn't like about African-Americans is the fault of Caucasians. Maybe he would have to conclude that American Caucasians caused the problem, whatever he thinks it is, about which he now complains.
Adams doesn't want to hear about this, or to have to acknowledge it and know it, any more than does Ron DeSantis. Because, as heirs of the Caucasians who began this mistreatment, and as people who continue it now, and are beneficiaries of it, it would make them feel bad? Or self-conscious? Or guilty? Or as if they owed anything, including better treatment, to African-Americans? Yeah, so? "Those who fail to study history..." so to speak.
Has Adams, or DeSantis, or any of the rest of them, never apologized to anyone for anything? Have they somehow convinced themselves they never did anything for which they should apologize? And in a less personal way, do they not recognize things that were done, which should not have been done, and for which an apology is owed, even though they think or tell themselves they did not personally do it? That's a pretty breathtaking lack of awareness, and self-awareness.
It's not particularly uncommon to hear an African-American person say they have to work twice as hard to be credited with half as much. Do people like Adams not believe this, or they just don't want to hear it, and have to think about it?
One of the many foolish pop psych suggestions is that people should refuse to feel guilty. In my opinion, this is both idiotic and antisocial. Guilt is one of the things that connects people, and makes them accountable to each other. It's not toxic or destructive. It springs from empathy. If I were to take Adams' advice, and want to "get the fuck away" from anyone, I'd want to get the fuck away from Adams. So, apparently, do many of the newspapers that have carried, and paid Adams for, his "Dilbert" cartoons.
What a waste of humanity that boy is.
To the extent that "we" caused the problem of which Adams and others complain, "we" have a responsibility to fix it. One of the suggestions that is not uncommonly made is to pay reparations to African-American people, as tenuous as that categorization is for some people. (Barack Obama is generally thought of as "black," and he calls himself "black." He is precisely as "white" as he is "black,") Personally, I don't agree. For one thing, considering the extent of the damage done, and the length of time it was done, I don't think there's enough money in the world to compensate African-Americans. If we made a reasonable effort -- if there was a reasonable effort -- to pay some remotely seemingly compensatory amount, many recipients would only lose it anyway. We see this happen with lottery winners and people like professional athletes (can you believe that Dan Marino declared bankruptcy, and John Elway was either in deep financial straits, or also declared bankruptcy? Johhny Unitas was a mess due to gambling debts.). They don't have a comfortable and stable system for handling sudden infusions of large amounts of money. They can't think straight about it, and they give it away foolishly, buy homes and other things they shouldn't buy, for too many people, fall for losing investments (scams), etc.
What we ought to do first is stop treating African-Americans the way we (still) do, and second, address and reverse the undermining of their reasonable places in society. Some do well, and even extraordinarily well. They're more than capable, given a fair chance. (We generally don't give them a fair chance.) We spent centuries destroying any sense they might have had as members of families, and then we complain that they're not stably family-oriented. Duh. Many of them need encouragement and help from us. When we penalize them for almost anything they do, no matter how appropriate and fully legal, whom do we blame for the fact that they give up, and decide that if they're going to lose anyway, then they might as well benefit themselves on the way down and out? All of that needs to be acknowledged and restructured.
People like Scott Adams don't help the cause. They don't help anything. I sort of wonder what kind of upbringing Adams had. To use a colloquialism, I don't think it included breast-feeding.
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