Styx on Scott Adams

Here's Styx's reaction to the Scott Adams kerfuffle:

To answer a question asked by Charles in the comments: is there a link to the Rasmussen survey that provoked Adams's reaction? Yes, there is, but the site is behind a paywall. The Washington Examiner, however, has an interpretation of the survey but shows some raw percentages as well. And lo and behold: 53% of blacks, a majority, say it is okay to be white. I guess Scott Adams must be reacting to the ≤ 47% who think being white is not okay* (Styx says above, and I agree, that "It's not okay to be white" is a racist sentiment**).

According to the Examiner article—and keeping in mind the Examiner is a conservative news outlet—the phrase "It's okay to be white" has a history that associates it with hate groups, although the mantra grew beyond hate groups to become something of a rallying cry for white folks in general. Nobody owns language, and what something means depends on context.

Digging around for the survey—and finding both it and the Examiner article—was educational. It appears that Scott Adams is reacting to what he sees as a discouragingly large proportion of black folks*** who do not affirm that being white is okay. Much depends on how you interpret the stats. As I noted above, a majority of black folks think being white is fine. 

So was Adams justified in thinking he should cut off association with all blacks? Adams called blacks—and he applied this term to the collective—"a hate group." Not only did he say that white people should "get the hell away from" blacks, he also said they should "get the fuck away" (emphasis mine). He further says that he's sick of seeing videos, every day, showing black people beat up non-black people. He has deliberately moved to an area where blacks are not prominent. More: since all he's gotten for his years of effort at trying to help parts of the black community is accusations of racism and bigotry, he has effectively given up.

As I noted in my response to Charles's comment, I'm on record accusing John Derbyshire of being racist after he wrote an article describing a white version of "The Talk." "The Talk" is the spiel that black parents give their children, at some point in the kids' young lives, about the harsh realities of growing up black in America. Derbyshire responded in kind, describing the harsh realities that white people face whenever they're around black folks, essentially telling kids to stay away from black people. (Although his article wasn't published in the National Review, where he was a staff writer, the National Review fired him.) Should I then deem Adams racist as a matter of consistency?

Adams is not doing quite what Derbyshire did. Derbyshire's piece is targeted to a specifically white audience, and he's explicitly advocating that everyone non-black dissociate themselves from black folks. This is the basic reason why I called Derbyshire a racist, and I know many conservatives generally disagree with me: they see Derbyshire as simply spitting facts, as the kids say these days. (I do not. I see what Derbyshire did as toxic.) Adams, however, doesn't enjoin anyone else to do what he did; he's merely talking about his own headspace. To that extent, I can respect the honesty of his feelings, but in the end, I disagree with his shunning of the entire black race in America (I assume American blacks are his sole targets).

Think about the increasing number of black folks who became persuaded to support Donald Trump over the course of Trump's term. Trump enjoyed a higher level of minority support than any other Republican president in history. On YouTube, I've made it a habit to "collect" black-conservative channels: I have a special tag/category into which I file these good people's perspective. Then look at the great black folks, many on the right side of the aisle, who have done and are doing their part to ennoble my country: Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Larry Elder, Thomas Sowell, Amala Ekpunobi, Candace Owens, Alonzo Rachel, Diamond and Silk (RIP, Diamond), Kimberly Klacik, Colion Noir, etc. I also think there are plenty of black folks on the left/liberal side who are perfectly decent even if I were to disagree with them about matters of history, the role of government in people's lives, the need for color-blindness ("content of their character"), etc. Denzel Washington is nobody's Republican, last I checked, but he's talked for a long time about the need for black folks to stand up and take responsibility for their lives instead of looking for handouts. Morgan Freeman has admittedly said some batshit-crazy things that might ruffle conservative feathers, but he's also uttered truths that make sense to righties (his famous interview with Mike Wallace, in which he deplores the notion of a "Black History Month," still circulates widely).

So to my mind, you can't just write off the entire black race—a race that is troubled, yes,**** but that has given and still gives so much to the American cultural fabric. Such an action—writing off a whole race—is an extreme overreaction, and while I respect the deep hurt that Adams is expressing, I hope he comes around to seeing that he's wrong on this matter, that black folks, taken as a whole, are not irredeemable. I also respect the responses by Black Conservative Perspective and Styx, both of whom go right to the double-standards accusation (which is also legitimate). Their arguments have merit, too. My point, though, focuses specifically on Adams: he might not have "pulled a Derbyshire" by telling everyone to turn their backs on the African-American community, but he still had to ignore a mountain of evidence to arrive at his extreme conclusion. Note that Black Conservative Perspective himself seems to support Adams's attitude. That's evidence in my favor right there.

Here are some snippets from the Examiner article:

Voters are not buying into “woke” racial politics and anti-white attacks from liberals, according to a new survey on the simmering “it’s OK to be white” pushback.

In the latest Rasmussen Reports survey shared with Secrets, 72% agreed with the statement, “It’s OK to be white.” Even a majority of black people, 53%, agreed.

What’s more, when asked if voters agreed or disagreed with the statement, “Black people can be racist, too,” 79% agreed, including 66% of black people.

The survey appears to be a blow to the narrative in the liberal media and Hollywood that white people are the only racists and that being white is something people should be ashamed of.

The statement, “It’s OK to be white,” was first pushed on right-wing websites and then picked up in speeches by influencers. It has since been decried as a hate chant by the Anti-Defamation League.

In the last week, for example, Portland, Maine, has seen protests against a former city council candidate's OK sign.

The Rasmussen survey showed that most think nobody has the market on racism and that there is a lot more open-mindedness on the topic than the media would make you believe.

In its analysis, Rasmussen said:

"Support for 'OK to be white' crosses political lines. Majorities of Democrats (51%), Republicans (73%), and those not affiliated with either major party (52%) strongly agree that 'It’s OK to be white.'"

This article leaves me to wonder why Scott Adams reacted as strongly as he did. He's already announced that his words have effectively destroyed his career as newspaper after newspaper has dropped his comic strip Dilbert. Adams says most of his income will be gone soon. One way to look at this is to say it's the cancel culture at work. But I can't help thinking that Adams quite unnecessarily did this to himself, and my fear is that people will interpret Adams's words as some sort of incitation when he was clearly just expressing his own perspective. When it comes to race in America, things often quickly (and stupidly) get out of hand.

ADDENDUM: a commenter at Instapundit writes:

Every city in America has predominately black neighborhoods. Vanishingly few white liberals actually seek to live in those neighborhoods.

They don‘t raise their families there.

The only thing Scott Adams did was say out loud what all liberals do.

That's a more sympathetic attitude than my own. But there may be some truth to it, at least as concerns the behavior of certain white liberals.

A scan of the rest of the comment thread for this post shows almost nothing but sympathy for Adams from the Instapundit commentariat.

ADDENDUM 2: anticipating an objection: yes, Adams does offer "advice" to white folks to stay away from black folks. Does this count as incitation? I'd still say no; the guy is just expressing his opinion about how to handle the situation, and his solution, far from being violent, is simply to retreat, whatever that might mean for other white people. I still don't agree with the extreme, across-the-board tenor of his perspective, but he has a right to his opinion.

ADDENDUM 3: PJW weighs in on the controversy:

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*I use the less-than-or-equal-to sign because the number of blacks thinking whiteness is not okay could be less than 47%. If the survey included a "neutral" option, some or many people could have selected that.

**Note that this doesn't work both ways. "It's okay to be white," taken in the most literal way, is a positive statement affirming that being white isn't bad. "It's not okay to be white" is a racist statement because it denigrates an entire demographic. We can get into the question of the "It's okay" expression's history—specifically its association with white supremacy—but the fact is that the term has evolved beyond that into what I would consider a fairly timid affirmation of one's own ethnicity, assuming the person uttering the sentence is white. Compare "It's okay to be white" to "Black Power," "Black is beautiful," etc. Viewed in that light, does "It's okay to be white" sound even remotely emphatic?

***In his video, Adams says, "...almost half."

****What race/ethnicity isn't troubled to some degree?