Tech billionaire Elon Musk has accused the media of being racist towards whites and Asians. The trigger for his accusation was the decision of hundreds of US newspapers to end their collaboration with the prominent comic strip author Scott Adams after he had made disparaging comments about black Americans on his YouTube channel, as reported by the Reuters news agency, among others.
“What exactly are you complaining about?” Musk tweeted Sunday, then deleted the tweet and instead wrote, “The media is racist.” For a long time, the US media has been racist against non-white people, the Twitter boss claimed. “Now they are racist against whites and Asians.” The same has happened in America’s elite colleges and high schools. “Maybe they can try not to be racist.” Musk did not criticize Adams’ racist outburst.
Adams, whose cartoon series “Dilbert” has appeared in hundreds of US newspapers since 1989, had described blacks as a “hate group,” accused them of “not focusing on education,” and indicated that they used violence against “non-black citizens ” proceeded. The once widely acclaimed comic book author advised all white people to “stay the fuck away from black people.” He lives in a predominantly white neighborhood out of conviction, the 65-year-old explained. He has helped black people “all his life”, but will no longer do so.
Adams’ tirade was sparked by a poll by polling firm Rasmussen Reports that found 53 percent of black Americans agreed, “It’s okay to be white,” while 26 percent disagreed and 21 percent weren’t sure. According to the civil rights organization Anti-Defamation League, the statement originated as part of an online campaign by the far-right alt-right movement in the USA, was then adopted by white supremacists and has become very popular as a far-right meme. But Adams said the poll showed black Americans hated white people. “If almost half of all black people don’t agree with white people, then that’s a hate group,” Adams concluded from the numbers.
Adams has long advocated controversial views, far-right ideologies and conspiracy theories. The 65-year-old celebrated activism for men’s rights more than ten years ago and compared women who tried to get equal pay in the workplace to children who begged for candy, as reported by “New York Magazine”. In the era of Donald Trump, he steered further to the right, attacking the Black Lives Matter movement, spreading misinformation about corona vaccines and transphobia, and implying that a Joe Biden victory in the 2020 presidential election would lead to that Republicans being hunted down while the police stood idly by.
Adam’s recent racist outburst was the final straw for his employers. The newspaper “Plain Dealer” in the state of Ohio told its readers that the abandonment of his comic strips was “not a difficult decision”. Publications that banned “Dilbert” from their pages include the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the USA Today network of hundreds of newspapers. When asked in how many papers “Dilbert” still appears, Adams replied to the “Washington Post” on Saturday: “Until Monday about zero.”
Musk, too, has been causing a stir with his views on political and social issues since he took charge of Twitter in October. One allegation against the Tesla founder is that he is more concerned about the “freedom of expression” of people who spread racist or anti-Semitic views than the views themselves. previously banned for hate speech. And his car company Tesla has already had to pay millions in compensation for racism in the workplace.
Sources: Scott Adams on Youtube, Elon Musk on Twitter, Reuters, Washington Post, New York Magazine, Huffington Post
