It's okay to be white/It's not okay to be Dilbert

What did Adams actually say? Here it is:

On his YouTube show on Wednesday, Feb. 22, Adams cited a survey that found nearly half of Black people do not agree with the statement, “It’s okay to be white.” The Anti-Defamation League has called the phrase a “hate symbol” that was popularized in late 2017 as a trolling campaign on 4chan.

“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. Just get the fuck away,” Adams said. “Wherever you have to go, just get away. Because there’s no fixing this. This can’t be fixed. So I don’t think it makes any sense as a white citizen of America to try to help Black citizens anymore. It doesn’t make sense. There’s no longer a rational impulse. So I’m going to back off on being helpful to Black America because it doesn’t seem like it pays off.

https://variety.com/2023/digital/news/dilbert-canceled-newspapers-scott-adams-racist-1235535643/

From a comic guy whose boots Adams isn't fit to kiss.

For background:

"It's okay to be white" (IOTBW) is a slogan which originated as part of an organized alt-right trolling campaign on the website 4chan's discussion board /pol/ in 2017.[1] A /pol/ user described it as a proof of concept that an otherwise innocuous message could be used maliciously to spark media backlash.[2][3] Posters and stickers stating "It's okay to be white" were placed in streets in the United States as well as on campuses in the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom.[1][3]


The slogan has been supported by white supremacists including neo-Nazis.[4] Media coverage of the event, including Fox News host Tucker Carlson asking "What's the correct position? That it's not okay to be white?", was seen as reacting in the way that the trolling campaign had intended.[4]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_okay_to_be_white

TLDR: It's an intentionally innocuous sounding phrase that provokes a strong negative reaction because it's also used by racist hate groups, allowing those same groups to gain sympathy and support by promoting narratives of white victimhood.

The innocent meaning doesn't even add up.
Even if it weren't started by trolls, why would my white ass need to be told "it's okay to be white"?
I don't get that.
I have a lot of shit I get depressed about, but my place in America's color wheel isn't one of them.
What kind of bent-up loser do you have to be to feel abused for whiteness?
It's ONLY a victimhood thing.
And only racist puppet-masters are gonna tap into that.

It's ONLY innocent in some alterni-verse where racism has magically disappeared, and only "troublemakers," keep it going.
And, we've got a couple people here who live in that alterni-verse.

Too bad Jack Kirby’s not still with us.

https://www.pastemagazine.com/comics/jack-kirby/8-ways-comic-book-legend-jack-kirby-fought-fascism/

It's a stretch, but I could imagine some insecure white teenager thinking he's not cool because all his favorite musicians and male porn stars are black and he's not. That kid could benefit from being told it's okay to be white. Most other people though? They're fine.


The thing about the similarly innocuous phrase "Black Lives Matter" was that if you said it and someone else responded "well, obviously," that was an opening to discuss how excessive police violence committed against black people with minimal repercussions could give someone the impression that maybe they don't. "If you agree that black lives matter, wouldn't you agree we should do something about this phenomenon?"

I don't see a similar conversation to be had if someone agrees that it's okay to be white, unless you're about to go down some white supremacist conspiracy rabbit hole.

Some folk can't accept that "white folk did bad and should say sorry" != "white folk are scum".

I'd be interested in knowing what Adams thinks he did to help black folk. I can't find anything on Google. And he's pretty solidly a Trumper so unless he buys the craptastic argument that the Dems have hoodwinked the blacks and the GOP can free them (see the GOP voter disenfranchisement thread if you think THAT shit is true).... he's a liar.

I saw a documentary about him. He worked out of a nice, middle-class home office (I think in California) and he and his wife always had their doors open for the local kids. Mrs. Kirby always had snacks and drinks for them and he would talk to them while he worked. Absolutely amazing talent, but more importantly he and his wife seemed to be genuinely nice people.

Jack the King Kirby indeed
He and Stan Lee are relaxing with Fred Rogers, Bob Ross, Carl Sagan, and the other true humanist giants of history

Dilbert Vs. Captain america and other super heroes like them is not the same as Kirby vs. Adams. I will give you that as people their actions and ideas are that way where Kirby is a far better person who fought against american fascism.

I do not know what is in the comics of Kirby. However, from the shallow view of the comics and their effects on society Kirby';s patriotic jingoism is the fuel for the right wing fascists of america. Just the costumes of the american Patriot superheroes like Captain america are the same things the Trump fools drape themselves in as they attack anyone who is different. America has to be red white and blue superhero fodder that associates the US with purity and freedom while the US has always been a shithole of racist ideologies who has inspired the facism of the Nazis with it's hatred and abuses of POS, women, and anything not christian.

OTOH we have Dilbert. A cynical cog in a fucked up corporate capital company that takes him for granted and tries to drain his soul from him for their own selfish profit. The comic openly mocks things like empty slogans and the lies told by the people in power to pretend they care about people while they set them at each other for fun and profit.

Captain america and comics like that whitewash america as the great protector of freedom and life so no one thinks about it, while Dilbert comes around and shows that everything is a lie so when his creator gets outed as a racist white middleman none of us are really terribly shocked because his work told us never to trust his ass. I never put my trust in Adams as a person because his own comic told me he would be full of shit. Meanwhile Captain america has always been the image of the american lie that has adorned the Trumpista bullies and supported american's ideas that they are the best just for being american, and that all the world needs the US to come in and enforce our false ideals on them with a good ass kicking.

That shows you didn't even read the article, cuz it tells you.

But the ra-ra flag waving Cap went out of style as soon as Stan Lee unfroze him in the 60's, and he found himself out of place in the anti-Vietnam era.
And that updated to him reacting to SHIELD in "Winter Soldier" in the movies.

I actually did read the article. It does not address it at all. You have implied a lot, but the article does not even go into why Captain America ends up being an icon for the whitewashing of america. It did not go into why as a hero it portrays america and inspires a rather shallow and ignorant view of history ging the radical right an icon of heroism that is bathed in the symbols of pride that are often the symbols of oppression and genocide to indiginous people and those people enslaved by america.

For all the efforts of captain america let us remember, the name of america is from the colonizers who destroyed the natives on both continents of america. The USA was a nation created on ethnic superiority and gender superiority. It is a nation that has pushed christian superiority despite it's supposed rules of it's first amendment that congress shal make no laws respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise of it. The only religion that has had freedom has been christianity, and christianity has been, and is considered, the respected establishment religion of this country. That is the red white and blue of captain america. To use a fictional character to whitewash those colors by pretending this country was ever the ideal of that hero is holy shit level of propaganda and lies.

It is a fiction created to pretend the US was ever this great nation of freedom and equality. The very idea of how Captain amereica was created is white nationalist considering they would have never created a black supersoldier in the days of WW2, and that the US itself did the most abhorent act of war ever in melting asian people while being the inspiration of Hitler's Nazi ideology.

The whole fictional story of the heroism of the US against the Nazis portrayed in Captain America is a false narrative designed to appeal to white heroisn and american white nationalism by whitewashing a gtenocidal nation that took european white male christian superioty and turned it up to 11.

I will give you that not all these comics went this way, and the direction did change to fit into the more popular narration of the youth over the ageing so called greatest generation. However, Captain America merely reflected those views and did not inspire them. There are a lot more Captain America clones out there that never went anywhere. The whole popularity of Captain America can be argued to have a base in whitewashing the name of America as americans glommed onto a white superhero with america in it's name to boost it's popularity over other clones.

To go further down this line, let us remember Marvel was not some woke place. If I do recall they had their white guys creating black superheroes like Black Panther to capitalize on the black community while not giving black artists the full ownership and spotlight of their own super hero creations. It is great that the MCU gave a lot more control and the top spots to black creators for the movies, but that is like pretending the African stylings of the lion king were actually black empowerment when it was all white artists, and they even shoved Elton John into the lead for the musical score while pushing Lebo M to the straight to video sequel and pretending Elton and the disney white boys made that shit up.

Scot Adams is a racist dick and deserves to be cancelled. However, the attitude of Dilbert is don't trust the guy in the boss's chair because he is a greedy evil moron. Dilbert never whitewashed away the evil of the corporate guy and tried to redeem scott adams and the white power structure of greedy useless morons who get their money and power off the backs of the working class. He could have had some more colored characters in there, and he did have a thing for lampooning foreign interns who often end up doing a lot of hard work for the corporate machine. That did sort of come through with Asok despite Asok being portrayed as part of the problem some of the time.


But please do actually participate in the argument dicky. You have offered up a @Bill Carson defense. I cannot argue directly with the creator of the article when I offer the counter point because they are not here. So you have to back your shit up when the argument comes. You don't just spout out the article or video says and the points stand as some sort of irrefutable fact. Do me a favor, and if you know who created the article get them to come here and argue the point as they might have an interesting point to make and can participate in a real discussion beyond a tweet level response.

Then you can go sit in the corner with federal fuckup and you guys can do what smooth brains do. If I ever have a stroke and loose 99 percent of my brain I will come join you on your level.

That's your claim to back up.
Okay, America has had a rotten history.
The comics don't ignore that.
Have they always gotten it right? Nope.
Has any piece of art?
Nope.

A white guy had to create Black Panther, because the black artists weren't there, and it wasn't for lack of trying to get them.
Jack Kirby was very awkward about it.
As soon as they could get the new generation of black artists/writers to fix up Black Panther, they did so.
And it happened well before the movie.

So did Charles Dickens.
And Dickens wasn't a fascist.


You don't want to give Kirby or Marvel any credit because they weren't perfect unicorns, but you want to give a shitpile like Adams credit for pretending to be a rebel?
Well, shit, give UA a sloppy kiss then, cuz that's his whole shtick.

Thank you for the actual improved discussion, but you are reversing my point. I clearly said Kirby looks like an awesome dude. My complaint falls more upon the power structure and fandom that promoted Captain america. Which is why I tried to separate this. I do get Cap did fight Nazis in america. This is more for the fans than a person like Kirby who I actually agree seems to have done the best within the system he was entrenched with. For example, I am not bitching that the white creators of Marvel superheroes made black super heroes for inclusivity, and I think they did their best to give that hero to the community.

To forget the reality of that time does end up whitewashing the history of things. There is also a reality that though they fought in their own ways, they were the ones who bent to the racist power structure to get success. This becomes the very problem with the admiration of super heroes in general. If Kirby and Stan had drawn a line like a superhero would, we would not have their work in the way we have it now. They would have been relegated to low end success or an indie production. They sucked producer cock and got away with what they could, which whitewashed america by associating it with a false hero who would have been killed and villified by real america. Instead americans used Cap and the art of Kirby as a shield against accusations, and a bludgeon against people who questioned the heroism of america.

It goes back to the creation of the atomic bomb. It was a huge scientific advancement that has inspired other great developments. However, the creators of it did it for the purpose of creating the most horrible weapon ever, and killed millions of people by enabling the american war machine. It is of a much more horrible level, but the captain america idea has bamboozled so many people into thinking america is great.

I will agree that over time products like Watchmen did come about to go after these issues, but I would imagine it was the way fans took characters like Captain America that brought about those thoughts on how these images profited those who created them.

I am not saying they didn't. What I am saying is the purity of a Captain "America" undermines that truth by pretending america was always that noble by associating it with someone who would have faced his own destruction to not allow that to be a thing. Captain America would have probably stood against racism, and probably did. America itself had to be dragged kicking and screaming from racism, and it is still kicking and screaming and killing for racism and other hate, while holding up the symbols of the red white and blue that Captain america has cleansed with his image.

I would also wonder has Captain America ever gave up the name america and the colors of red white and blue because OMG this country has always been a home of racism, sexism, religious ideology, oppression, sufferage, hate of GLBT people, hate of Muslims, Hate of Jews, Hate of every immigrant, and genocidal towards a number of other peoples, including the ones who were here before the colonizers?

I believe in the first amendment. Yes, I will give the founders credit for writing it, and maybe even for some self awareness that they know they could not fix their own violations of it, but they certainly were racist, sexist, christian people who's idea was great, but they sucked ass for allowing and doing the immoral and evil things they did.

The Dilbert comic, back when I read it, said beware of people like Scott Adams because as a boss and influencer he certainly had bad intentions and was a terrible person. That holds true much more than superheroes can make a difference.

I also am not aware of a large portion of dilbert content for the past decade or so, so if dilbert got all racist and went against those things way back when I was reading it I am only going by the older message.

Yes. In the comics, after Watergate, he became Nomad.
In the movies, after Civil War, he painted his red stripes black, and was Nomad in everything but name.
He was just Steve Rogers.

It's in the OP article; he added his first black character, and had him identify as a white man.
So he got racism, and the attack helicopter joke in one go.

Fuck your collective guilt. I don't owe any group an apology.

It's OK to be white! Support the troops! All lives matter!

And you're a self-made man!

So the gravy seals read the comics like they read the bible. Yeah, but they really did not push that point home. It has beco0me obvious you have to hit them in the face with it or else they do not believe it. The reason we know there is no christian god is because that motherfucker would be killing some bitches on the right for their heresy. You have to take your shit from their white supremacy in a blunt and obvious manner to make a dent in their appropriation of it for shielding themselves from attacks.

I have been avoiding new dilbert for many years now. Old dilbert told me it would happen. I am not really sure why Adams used his comic to rat on himself, but if you paid attention he did tell you all along this was going on.

It is very right wing to be the enemy they are speaking about.

Hell yes.
They even did a "What If?" in the 80's where Cap got unfrozen a decade late, and while he was under, a crazy right-wing fake-Cap impersonated him, and pushed for a Nazi presidential candidate.
When real-Cap finally thawed out, he had to join a resistance movement with Spidey and Luke Cage.

Check out these final pages...





Righties basically had to that issue.

They don't get Punisher either, really.
Punisher isn't about "totally go out and do this!! ".
The writers beat the drum pretty hard that Punisher is an alcoholic with PTSD out the yin-yang, and that his brand of vigilantism destroys your soul.
Anyone who reads Punisher, and thinks "wouldn't this be fun!?!? " doesn't have a lot going on upstairs.

The Right has done a very good job of telling people to ignore the "your right to swing your fist ends at my nose" part.

This allows them to pretend that it's a bad thing where giving folk they hate rights infringes their own.

It's kind of in the name. Spidey doesn't punish criminals, he catches them and lets the cops take them to jail. Punisher goes too far, we all get that. That's why I don't like him. The people that have Punisher stickers on their F-150's know Punisher goes too far, they like that he does that.

I half agree with this.

A modern white person doesn't have any individual guilt for institutions like slavery.

However, countries, businesses, and other institutions which are treated for other reasons as being continuous since then (And lean on that when it benefits them) absolutely do.

15 years ago our PM made a formal apology in parliament to the Stolen Generations. That wasn't him saying he personally was involved, but as the leader of the government now he represented the body that in the past had done those things.

The apology followed a decade of the previous PM (John Howard) refusing to do so, because he argued he hadn't been personally involved so shouldn't have to apologise.

The real, political problem with apologizing is then you might have to do something about it.

Annoying racial nonsense is one of the reasons I choose to live abroad.

China, famously non-racist?

In China all Humans are equal.