They Cancelled Dilbert

Welcome once again to the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host John Harris. I am back from traveling for one day and then I go on another trip for another five days. This is actually a vacation though this week and it's a much needed one.

I haven't gone on a vacation with my wife for I guess it was 2021 when we went before we moved back to New York from Virginia and now we just are at a point where I think it would be helpful. So we're going to go away for a week.

So for those who prayed for travel mercies last week, I appreciate your continued prayers for travel mercies. I'm doing something I don't normally do and going to a beach and sitting on a beach. I don't know if I'll actually sit there for days.

We'll see. I tend to be, for those who don't know, someone who likes to see everything I can see. So before I was married and my brother was, before he was married, we went on a road trip for a month and we, it was grueling and my brother will tell you that he probably still has PTSD from how many things we saw, national parks, historical places, and then we would just sleep wherever.

It would be like, well, it's getting dark now. Let's find a Walmart parking lot. Or there was a few times we found a campground and then I think it was the last, I don't know why I'm sharing all this, but I think it was the last, maybe the day before we were driving back to, to our home.

And I told my brother that cause he was so upset. He was just, he needed a hotel. He was just like, I can't do, I can't keep doing this. I need a shower. I need like a good bed for a night so I can get some good sleep instead of setting up a tent in a parking lot.

And I told him, cause I wasn't happy about it. I said, well, I'll get you a hotel room, but it'll be for your birthday and his birthday is in October. And this was like in June or July that I said that.

So, and this was years ago. I wouldn't be the, maybe the same way now, but that's just people who know me know that's my reputation. So I'm doing something different. I know my wife. I think she likes, well, she likes seeing things, but she would prefer to probably take a little bit of a different pace than what I normally take.

And hopefully that's what we're going to do. And we're going to, I'm going to try this whole relaxing thing. We'll see how it works. I hear it's good. I hear it's good for you. So anyways, probably giving you way more information than you want or need about me.

But I did get a lot of work done last week. I traveled from Charlotte, North Carolina on Monday, all the way to Monroe, Louisiana, where I flew out on Saturday and interviewed a number of experts on history and music and other things, military history.

And we, we just talked about what, what is America? What, what, what does America signify stand for? What's fundamental to the United States? We talked about Jamestown and I'm excited about this project.

I think it's going to be really good. So 1607project .com. If you're interested in that, I want to show you a clip though. This is one of the interviews I did was with a military historian and I couldn't help myself because we're also, for those who don't know, doing a project on China.

And I don't know if I've shown the trailer on the podcast yet. I know it's posted on YouTube, but for those who want to see that, you can go to givesengo .com forward slash expose the CCP, which stands for Chinese Communist Party.

Give send to go .com forward slash expose the CCP. And we use give send go because it's a better than go fund me. It's in fact, I've communicated with the family. I think I was the first guest on their podcast on the give send go podcast because I had funded a whole documentary, paint the wall black using give send go.

And so anyway, they're, they're a great outfit. And I would suggest using them instead of using go fund me if you have to crowdfund something, but we're crowdfunding this documentary about China as well.

So if you want to support 1607 project, I know it's so much, there's too many, too many things out there, right? Well, these are two projects we're working on simultaneously. And one of them, the 1607 project will come out first, but that is through a 501 C three organization.

So if you need that tax write off, you can go to 1607 project .com. And if you donate there, it's, it's, there's a write off with that. The other one, there's not a write off, but we would sure appreciate it.

So that, that goes directly to last stand studios. And like I said, that's at give send go forward slash expose the CCP. I'm going to show you a little clip. It's only one minute long from interview. I did with a military historian, Sandy Mitchum is his name.

And this is what he has to say about the threat of communist China. And after I play this,.

Then we'll get into the topic for the day later. China, all they can talk about is a future war. It's on his mind. They Chinese do know how to wait and they've waited long enough. China's always wanted Taiwan could never have it without America being weak.

You could call it a cold war that will eventually get hot. Yes, we are economic war with them. They are ahead of us in the technological field. A part of the war will be smashing our computer systems with viruses.

I think they'll attack our electrical grid. It will be a war like we've never experienced before, because America's respect for human life, China doesn't, they won't care about casualties. Well, there you have it, that is coming together.

And hopefully, I would say by this fall is when we should probably be able to launch that provided we get the funding we need. And I've already arranged another interview for late, or I should say early summer, late spring.

So we're getting there. And your support definitely helps us with this project. We're hoping to tell the story the media is just not telling and they're not. And I'm not just talking about the left wing media.

I think with the exception of maybe the Epoch Times, and there's maybe a few talk radio hosts, not a lot of people are talking about China. And I think that may be changed a bit since the balloon incident.

But there's there's a lot. And I'm not talking about just China itself and what they're doing, but the corruption in our own government and on both sides of the aisle, in supporting the Chinese Communist Party in various ways.

And that's what we're also going to shine a big light on. So and that's, that's the more relevant thing. You might wonder why make a documentary about what's the threat of communist China? I mean, they're over there, we're here, what can we do about that?

Well, you can do something, hopefully, about the people who represent you, your governor, your congressmen, senators, etc. So anyway, that's in the works. I want to get to the main topic, though, today, give you some stuff to think about.

I'm recording this, assuming that on Monday, this is going to be all over now, I don't know, to what extent weekends can sometimes be a barrier to the news cycle, and a needed one, we need that. Especially for Christians, though, that's definitely the case.

If you go on Christian social media platforms, generally on a Sunday, and I think this is appropriate, you're not going to find much. Even if there's a controversy raging, generally Sunday is not the day to talk about it.

And so I don't have any hot takes from even woke in evangelical circles on this, because there's just not enough of Monday yet to really see if there's a reaction. But I'm thinking there is going to be somewhat of a reaction.

I don't know, maybe, we'll see. But it was worth talking about. Scott Adams, for those who don't know, he's the creator of Dilbert. And some of you probably don't like comics, but I'm one of those who does.

And Dilbert is, I think, one of the better comics. And so I've read Dilbert, or known about Dilbert, read Dilbert, I guess, for a long time. And it's been a while, though, I haven't had a newspaper in my hand for a while.

So I don't know, but I was young, I was like eight years old when I started reading Dilbert, and until I was in my late teens, at least. And Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, I think he has a podcast or a V cast, something, where it was in a video format, at least.

He made some comments that have gotten him basically canceled. Dilbert is no longer going to be in the funny section of your newspaper. I'm going to read for you a little bit of this story from the Los Angeles Times.

And yes, I've seen the video. Here's what the Los Angeles Times says. And no, I don't believe the Los Angeles Times, just for those who wonder, is a reputable news source. So I am self-consciously giving you the perspective that would lead to the cancellation of the creator of Dilbert here.

The creator of Dilbert, Scott Adams is his name, faced a backlash of cancellations Saturday while defending remarks describing people who are black as members of a hate group from which white people should get away.

I don't know why that's hard to read with a straight face. I think it's just because we are talking about the guy who invented Dilbert. Just think about that for a moment. I'm not saying he can't be serious, but he did invent Dilbert.

So I don't think he's wholesale describing people who are black. And I did watch the clip and I did see some of his Twitter, a little bit, not much of his Twitter interactions. And he was even pushing back against this.

I never said black people are members of a hate group. But anyway, Los Angeles Times, that is their leading paragraph here. And there's this part of me that just wonders if this is an epic troll by Scott Adams.

But that's what they're reporting, that people who are black are members of a hate group from which white people should get away. Now, the other thing about this is, if the, let's say, let me just switch out some words.

Let's say that the creator of Dilbert faced backlash on Saturday because he was defending remarks describing people who are white as members of a hate group from which black people should get away. I literally just switched two words.

And suddenly it's not that far-fetched. Of course, that's the 2020 narrative. That's the BLM narrative. So why is that controversial? Well, it's not really controversial. That's just what you get when you go and pay for hundreds of, or tens of thousands of dollars for university education.

You'll be able to spout out that opinion. But when you switch black and white around in the sentence, not so much. The article goes on, various media publishers across the US denounced the comments by Dilbert creator Scott Adams as racist, hateful, and discriminatory while saying they would no longer provide a platform for his work.

And I don't know. Well, we'll just keep reading a little bit. I don't know if there's much more to add to this, but Andrew McNeil syndication, which distributes Dilbert, did not immediately respond. Adams defended himself on social media.

Dilbert is a long running comic. The backlash began following an episode this week of the YouTube show Real Coffee with Scott Adams. Among other topics, Scott referenced a Rasmussen reports survey that had asked whether people agreed with the statement.

It's okay to be white. That's a controversial statement. I think it was Laura Southern was like detained at an airport for wearing a shirt that just said it's okay to be white. That was it. It's like, what kind of crazy, like, how is that?

Um, like super offensive to people when all the other things I see on T-shirts out there these days, F bombs and all the rest, but that, that one really offensive. Most agreed, but Adams noted that 26 of black respondents disagreed and others weren't sure.

I thought it was 40 say, I thought he said 46. Oh, whatever. The Anti-Defamation League says that the phrase was popularized in 2017 as a trolling campaign by members of the discussion forum 4chan and was adopted by some white supremacists.

Sorry, it's white supremacists are the only ones who think it's okay to be white. That's not a normal thing. Apparently you have to be pretty crazy to think that. I mean, normal people, good, decent American citizens, we all know, I guess that it's, that's not okay.

Like what's, how is that even the least bit controversial? Of course it's okay to be white. It's okay to be black. It's okay to, that's the way God created you. There's, that's not like a component of, uh, there's not an original sin attached to the melanin count of your skin tone or your genetics.

Adams, who is white, he's white. Yes. Repeatedly referred to people who are black as members of a hate group or a racist hate group and said he would no longer help black Americans. Now here's the interesting thing about this too.

The way this sentence is Adams who is white. It's not just Scott Adams, right? It's Adams who is white. Categorizing him is important here and I'm going to point out in a second why that's important. Based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to white people is to get away from black people, Adams said on his Wednesday show.

I just keep thinking of Adams being a comic who's doing an epic troll here because that seems to be, I, that's my gut feeling is that's what this is to some extent. He's, he's trying to use their logic against them.

He's saying, look, if these numbers were, and that's the thing, he didn't qualify it this way, but that's why I think it's a troll. But if I think what he meant and if he were to qualify it, he would have said, look, if these numbers, if the statement, let's say it's okay to be black or it's okay to be Asian or something, let's say a white people were surveyed and whatever the number was, 46, 26 said, no, that's not okay.

It's not okay to be black. It's okay to be Asian. That's, that's bad. Then, I mean, what would happen? I mean, you know, it would happen. You would have every major publication in the United States and a list of celebrities that would go on forever condemning white people in general for what a minority or what half of them or a significant portion of them believe or think.

In fact, you're seeing it right now with the Christian nationalist thing, the constant attempt to link it to white nationalism and to try to show through polls that look how many white people as opposed to other groups support quote unquote Christian nationalism, or look how many Republicans as opposed to other groups support Christian nationalism.

And it's not even necessarily a majority, or at least it's not, it's not everyone, but it's used to broad brush and then say, well, that we can just discount that whole, they're, they're tainted. That whole group is tainted.

White people are tainted. And, and so I think what Scott Adams is doing here is actually possibly brilliant. I think what he's doing is he's leaving out that qualification. This is just my theory. And he is saying something that if different labels were used, if you just switch the terms around, it's okay to be black and white people disagreed, he would be fully justified in making the argument.

Well, if that's the case, then I guess, you know, black people should get away from white people. But in, but instead the poll said something different. The poll said actually black people, a significant portion have a problem with the statement.

It's okay to be white. And so he's saying, well, I guess it's, if that, if that logic holds, then maybe white people should be careful. Maybe they shouldn't be around black people. If black people don't like them, that's, that's what he's saying.

And, and I think that's the reason he's saying it is because this kind of thing is said frequently against weaponized against white people, but you can't do the same thing in the other direction. And so this is the article goes on in another episode of his online show Saturday, Adam said he had been making a point that everyone should be treated as an individual without discrimination.

Yeah. And that I think supports that, that this is a troll of some kind, but you should also avoid any group that doesn't respect you. Even if there are people within the group who are fine, Adam said the Los Angeles times cited Adams racist comments while announcing Saturday that Dilbert will be discontinued Monday.

So, so Los Angeles times is saying, we're not gonna, we're going to cancel this guy. So, and, and yes, and it's USA today and the San Antonio express. And I mean, this is like within 24 hours, you have the plane dealer in Cleveland and other publications that are of advanced local media are announced that they are dropping Dilbert.

This is a decision based on the principles of this news organization and the community we serve wrote Chris Quinn, editor of the plane dealer. We are not a home for those who espouse racism. We certainly do not want to provide them with financial support.

Yeah. So this is the funny thing to me. I, I would wager, and I haven't, I don't read the plane dealer, but if you went to the plane dealer, I would just wonder, have they run articles that suggest that white people are, have a problem in any way, I don't know, supporting Donald Trump and his offensiveness or with white supremacy or white privilege, or I just wonder if any of those things have made their way to the pages of the plane dealer, because if that's the case, if any of that in the least, they're hypocrites of the rank of sort because Scott Adams isn't even saying, he's not making an argument for superiority of white people or anything there.

I don't, I mean, I'm not seeing that at least I'm, I'm open to the idea that I don't know Scott Adams intimately. So I'm open to the idea that maybe, maybe there is some problem with Scott Adams, but it's not in the evidence that's been brought forth in this article.

And what I've seen trending online, that, that he would, that would suggest that he's some kind of a white supremacist or white nationalist or any of that. He's just a guy who makes comics. And I think he's trolling.

And let's say it's legit though. Let's say like, this is truly, he does feel this way. Let's say Scott Adams. He, he seems to suggest he has a life of philanthropy, help trying to help the black community out.

And he's not really given any thanks for it, that he's just called a racist. That's one of the things he says in this video clip. And so he's not going to help him anymore. And so let's say that's the case.

Let's say that's true. And he's just not going to give his money to that anymore. And he's going to stay away. And if that's true, there's a problem with it, but it's not necessarily maybe the problem that you think, or not, not you, but people in general would think.

The problem with it is this, giving with the expectation of gratitude. So the exchange is giving, and then you are getting something in return. You're getting some kind of respect, or you think that your charity work deserves some kind of acknowledgement and praise.

And that is, I think, how most people feel about giving. And you're disappointed if there's no gratitude there. I mean, people even have this with their children. If their children aren't, well, maybe when they get older, you expect it when they're younger.

But if you give money, and they're just, they're not grateful, they take it for granted, then it makes you not want to give. And I can see a point in that. But I think, in general, giving, the motivation should be for truly Christian, pure giving.

Giving without the expectation of anything in return, because you love someone, because you want to help in some way. And that's where I think if there's any lesson here, anything negative that I have to say about Scott Adams, it's that, if that's really what he is thinking.

Again, I think it's a troll. I don't know that that's necessarily what's going on. Now, why do you bring all this up, John? It seems like it's not that important as some of the things that you talk about, and that would be true.

It perhaps isn't. I'm getting into celebrity minutiae here. But I was curious today to see if there's any reactions from quote-unquote wokey evangelicals, right? And so I went to probably like three different profiles, and there wasn't much, and I'm like, well, you know, Sunday is a day when you're not going to see a lot of that anyway.

But something caught my eye, and this is what I wanted to show you, if I can pull it up. Something caught my eye. I went to Jamar Tisby's page. Jamar Tisby, for those who don't know, has written a few books, most notably The Color of Compromise, and that book, it's a CRT-inspired narrative.

Racism doesn't go away. It just changes forms. And let's see if I can pull it up here. So this caught my eye. These are the tweets, and they're all from, well, one's from, I guess, the 11th here. It's a tweet thread, but they were all like within two minutes.

I'm seeing all these on Tisby's page. And I thought to myself, this is why Scott Adams, if he really truly feels the way he is talking about in his video on Saturday, this is why he feels this way. It's this kind of stuff.

Let me just read this for you. So Jamar Tisby, this is during the Super Bowl, I guess, or after. He says, organizers behind the He Gets Us campaign are set to spend $20 billion in Super Bowl ads alone and $1 billion over the next three years.

Let's talk about the misuses of a Christian evangelical money. So he doesn't like the way that this money was spent. And I would agree with him, but for different reasons. The He Gets Us campaign's a mess.

But he says the problem is that they should have basically given to more social justice causes. He says, better yet, of course, these multimillion dollar funds could go to support individuals and organizations already doing good work on a local or national scale.

We started the Witness Fellows Program to fund black social entrepreneurs at $100 ,000 each over two years. Better yet, instead of spending $1 billion over three years for the He Gets Us marketing campaign, starter fund incubator programs for creatives and production studios that offer blacks and other historically marginalized groups funding for literature, film, and digital content.

And this is, it's the we need money thing, right? And the He Gets Us campaign, let's just put the best construction on it. Let's say they really want souls to be saved. And that's why He Gets Us, the campaign exists.

If that's true, if that's the motivation, then what could be more important than that? Now, I'm not defending He Gets Us, because I don't think that's really what's going on. He Gets Us is, it's also got the social gospel stuff intertwined.

And it's not a legitimate outfit. I did a whole video on this already. But Jamar Tisby's got a problem. And he even, in one of the tweets in this thread, is calling out Hobby Lobby, because they, I guess, gave a lot of money to this.

And it's, they could have given to help marginalized groups, and they didn't do it. So you have that going on. And then you have this, you have, and again, the same day, I'm looking at this within a minute of each other.

Whenever you say, one of my best friends is black, are you sure that's what your alleged black friend would say about you? Sometimes these friends are utilitarian acquaintanceships. White people overemphasize in an attempt to appear non-racist.

Yeah, that's great. So just, that really helps build bridges. Look with skepticism. When someone says they have a best friend who's of another ethnicity, be skeptical of that, because, you know, the black people might not think that about you, and you're just using them by saying that.

I'm not saying you can't, people don't use other people, but this, what I'm trying to point out is that these things, this is the same man over the course of not even, like, a few weeks. And you just have to scroll just a little bit on his Twitter page, and you're seeing these same things.

Like, so you're getting the message, we need money. And these people who have all this money, and white people are in that, you know, they should be given to black people instead of funding he gives us.

And then it's that, well, if you say that you have black friends, then, you know, we can be skeptical of that. That's probably not even true. Let's doubt that. And then there's this. So much of the harm regarding racism is not about what was said, but what was not said.

Not about what was done, but what was not done. Complicity with racism does not require malicious action, just negligent inaction. So you don't have to do anything, and you're just a racist. You just sit there.

You don't hate anyone. You're a racist. This is my question. What are people supposed to think about this? Like, legitimately, what are you supposed to make of this? When you run into someone who has an attitude like this, want your money.

I'm going to doubt that you actually have black friends. And you're a racist, even if you don't do anything racist, think anything racist, whatever that means. You're just by default, that's the default setting, I guess.

Do you think you're not going to have some Scott Adams out there? You're not going to have people that are like, look, I've given all this money. You're ungrateful. I'm still called a racist. That's what Scott Adams said.

I can't seem to be friends with you. That's exactly what Scott Adams was saying. I just found it ironic. I just stumbled onto this. I went to Jamar Tisby's Twitter page, because I'm like, he's kind of the leftist evangelical poster child in some ways, I suppose.

And I thought, well, he's the activist. Let's see what he has to say. He didn't say anything about that, but he said everything that Scott Adams would inspire someone like Scott Adams to say what he did.

So am I blaming Jamar Tisby? No, because I don't think Scott Adams even probably knows who Jamar Tisby is. I'm just saying this is an attitude that's not unique to Jamar. This permeates. It permeates.

I probably could have gone to a number of other accounts, Twitter accounts, to just see the same kinds of things in their feed. You can't win. And that's what Scott Adams is saying. That's the bottom line for all this.

You can't win. You give money. It doesn't work. You try to befriend. I'm still a racist at the end of the day. There's just no escaping it. And Scott Adams is like, I'm done. I'm not playing that game anymore.

I think there's a lot of people who feel that way. And a lot of people are very afraid to say it, because they're going to make an example of Scott Adams. They're going to say he's a racist, even if he says the same kinds of things.

And this is what I wanted to emphasize a little bit, too, is why I said earlier, I said, watch how the LA Times says a white man, because there's someone else who said some very similar, if not more aggressive things.

And that would be Don Lemon. Don Lemon. This is what Don Lemon said. And this is very recent. He made a comment that was considered sexist on CNN this morning. He said that basically Nikki Haley, he suggested Nikki Haley was pastor prime and that a woman's prime was like her 20s through her 40s.

And so she's pastor prime. And that was considered basically sexist. And so, as all of this is happening, a clip gets pulled up from 2013. And in this clip, I watched the clip. Don Lemon says this. This is 2013, okay?

This is not ancient history. On CNN of all places, you would think now this is some right wing, this is someone to the right of Scott Adams. But this is Don Lemon. Black guy. And on CNN, nonetheless. And he says, and he has five things the black community must fix.

Five things the black community must fix. This is Don Lemon's opinion, not mine. Scott Adams references Don Lemon in the clip that people are passing around of Scott Adams. Don Lemon says, here's number five, pull up your pants.

Pull up your pants. He says, don't say the N word. His third example, respect where you live. Start small by not dropping trash litter in your own communities. I've lived in several predominantly white neighborhoods in my life.

I rarely if ever witnessed people littering. I live in Harlem now. It's an historically black neighborhood. Every single day I see adults and children dropping their trash on the ground when the garbage can is just feet away.

Just being honest here. Don Lemon. Number two, finish school, he says. You want to break the cycle of poverty, stop telling kids they're acting white because they go to school or they speak proper English, and a school drop.

And he talks about how much you make if you graduate college. And so that's what he says. And there's no mention of racism in any of this. This is the kind of thing, though, he's making the same observations, some of the same, at least, that Scott Adams is making.

And for some reason, and he goes past it, really. And for some reason, that's not a cancelable offense. Now, this was in 2013. Maybe today if Don Lemon said that, I don't know. But normally if these things are brought back up, even doesn't matter how, there's not like an expiration date.

Who cares how many years, you bring up something they did in high school and it's used against them now. But this isn't a cancelable offense for Don Lemon. But for Scott Adams, it's the end of the Dilbert comics.

And it kind of proves the point Scott Adams is trying to make to some extent, which is you can't win. And so, no, I'm not any kind of Scott Adams champion here. Like, I'm not, people are going to say I'm defending Scott Adams.

I mean, I'm defending his right to, or his, yeah, his right to feed himself, to have a business, to make comics about office life. They're not even about racial issues or anything. It's not even political.

It's just about office dynamics. And they're funny. And I think Scott Adams should, there's no reason he should have to stop making those comics because of these comments. These aren't what they're being portrayed to be.

Like level 10, this guy is trying to run for grand wizard of the KKK or something like that. He's not. He's just a guy who's frustrated at, that's the worst spin you could probably put on it. And I mean, he's following it up online with judge people, basically by individually.

But that's my take on it, I guess. That's the thing that I want to sound the alarm on a little bit here. And it's something that we've talked about before, so it's not anything new. But this is what wokeness does, guys.

This is what it does. There's a backlash. There's going to be. That's inevitable. And people are going to become resentful. Especially if you tell them they have white privilege and there's nothing they can do, but they need to give you money.

But even if they give you money, we still can't really be friends. What do you do with that? That's going to drive someone crazy. And I would say if you want to stop that kind of thing, if you really want to truly build peace between people, drop that narrative.

Drop it. There's no reason for it. Just say that anyone who has money and wants to give to charitable causes, we're grateful for it. No matter what community it is, but people who need it, that's how we should look at it.

People in need versus people who don't have a need in that area and can help. And that's not whites and blacks and these other ways that we're breaking up society here. It's on the basis of a need that we give out of the goodness of the bounty that God's given us.

So anyway, I thought I would just highlight that. I want to talk about some other things this week. I'm going to try to pre-record just maybe another episode or two. And we'll talk about Southeastern a little bit.

We'll talk about Lord willing, if there's time, another denomination. I want to talk about the Lutherans a little bit and maybe the Anglicans, because there's some stuff going on with the Anglican church too that's very interesting.

In this case, it's actually the Anglicans in Africa that are really holding the denomination's feet to the fire and doing some really interesting things with making the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is normally the first among equals as far as the archbishops in the Anglican church, they're exerting their influence.

And it's no longer England that may be running the Anglican church. It may be those in Africa where the majority is and they're conservative. And I wonder how that works, because those in England, I mean, I just thought of those in England, right?

Aren't they white? And those in Africa, wouldn't they mostly be black? I mean, the narrative holds true. The ones in Africa, the people who are members of the Anglican church are against homosexual ordination.

That's the controversy. Maybe they should be listened to, right? I mean, they have that oppressed experience. They've been colonized by England, right? So how come it doesn't work for them? Stop asking questions, right, John?

All right. Well, we'll have more coming this week. God bless.