Posted on February 28, 2023

Scott Adams Wants Out. So Do We.

Gregory Hood, American Renaissance, February 28, 2023


Subscribe to future audio versions of AmRen articles here.

Scott Adams has lost his career because of a “racist rant.” It was hardly a “rant.” His video remarks were perfectly calm. They are still up, and though he has backtracked a bit since, he hasn’t taken it down. He’s not bowing, scraping, and apologizing.

The part that doomed him was his comments on a Rasmussen poll that found 46 percent of black voters either disagreed with or had no opinion about the phrase, “It’s OK to be white.” Mr. Adams argued that if this is the case, “that’s a hate group.” With “the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from black people” because “there is no fixing this.”

Mr. Adams says that this message isn’t much different from what many in the media argue. They just don’t like his hyperbole.

Mr. Adams has also noted that it’s the press that stirs up the frenzy about racism.

He also said that “white people in the media are also the main source of worsening race relations.” There have been some whites who have celebrated his “cancellation,” but Mr. Adams’s attempt to pin it on whites lets everyone else off the hook.

What has happened to Mr. Adams is why many whites are afraid to take their own side or even point out racial double standards. Whites do share some of the blame. However, it’s not just white “suicide.” An abused group may share some responsibility for collaborating with the abuser, but it is not entirely to blame.

White advocates could add that most people pushing segregated graduations are black. Most blacks think race is central to their identity. The whole point of critical race theory is to argue that even formally colorblind institutions are racist because they were built by white people. Most whites do not think race is central to their identity, but today, indifference to race (“colorblindness”) is another form of racism. If racism, ethnocentrism, or racial identity are problems, it’s not white people who suffer from them.

Whatever Scott Adams has said or will say in future, the situation is simple. He took many black activists at their word and said whites should no longer inflict their presence on blacks. That is apparently career-ending and proves that whites are in an impossible position. We can’t be around blacks without being inherently racist but we can’t leave either. We are expected to wallow in endless guilt. If we don’t, we suffer even more punishment, as Scott Adams has learned.

Slate and The Daily Beast, among others, argue Scott Adams shouldn’t have taken the Rasmussen poll seriously. Slate’s view:

[A]s Rasmussen surely knows, the phrase “It’s OK to be white” is a right-wing troll that originated in the forums of 4chan. As the Washington Post chronicled in 2017, the term was originally intended as a covert way to force an overreaction from progressives, including liberal journalists, if it started to spread, which in turn would show that “lefties” hate white people. Soon, signs bearing the slogan did crop up on campuses and other places around the country. The hysteria never arrived, but as Mitchell notes, the Anti-Defamation League marked the phrase a “hate slogan” — reasonably, given that it was white supremacists (most notably David Duke) who ran with the 4chan prank in the first place.

Rasmussen apparently assumed its audience would be too stupid to know any of that, and in the case of Scott Adams, it was clearly right.

Is the problem that Scott Adams didn’t know “It’s OK to be white” is a troll or that he did know? If the often-online and media-engaged Scott Adams didn’t know, why would respondents to a Rasmussen poll be familiar with 4chan lore? Besides, the “hysteria” has most definitely arrived. Anyone putting up signs that say “It’s OK to be white” will be accused of racism.

Mr. Adams himself says he took the poll at face value.

If Rasmussen itself is too conservative-leaning or somehow not credible, that supports Mr. Adams’s argument. Rasmussen trumped its results as proof that “most voters reject anti-white beliefs.” If the poll had a goal, it was to prove the opposite of Mr. Adams’s point. It wanted to show that most Americans, including blacks, reject “wokeness.”

The best way to summarize Mr. Adams’s position may be that whites need to end a destructive relationship in which they are abused just for existing. If journalists and activists think it is hateful for whites to disengage, that exposes the central contradiction of American race relations. In the view of our rulers, whites and whiteness are harmful, but sparing blacks the agony of being around us is even worse. Whites can neither stay nor leave. If it were a relationship between two people, it would be abuse.

The controversy isn’t over. The Washington Post is trying to expand it to Elon Musk, after Mr. Musk asked “what are they complaining about?” and added that the media is racist against whites and Asians.

“The billionaire’s comments continue a pattern of Musk expressing more concern about the ‘free speech’ of people who make racist or antisemitic comments than about the comments themselves” wrote the Post’s Will Oremus. “Musk’s views on race have been the subject of scrutiny both at Twitter, where he has reinstated far-right accounts, including those of neo-Nazis and others previously banned for hate speech, and at Tesla, which has been the subject of multiple lawsuits alleging a culture of rampant racism and sexual harassment in the workplace.”

A supposed journalist is clearly more eager to police what people say rather than defend free speech.

He’s not alone.

The naïve may marvel at the repetitive, emotional language, but many journalists think their job is to decide what people can and can’t say. Elon Musk is the next target, though he may have too much money to “cancel.” He is back to being the richest man in the world.

White advocates can feel a mix of vindication and frustration. We have spent years writing about racial double standards and posting about black attacks against white people, and finally others are beginning to notice. However, noticing it and doing something about it are different things. What’s happened to Mr. Adams shows that the system has grown even more intolerant of anyone who speak obvious truths. It relies on power and censorship to shut down discussion.

Both Mr. Adams and Mr. Musk are under huge pressure, but both share some responsibility for what’s happening. Pointing out discrimination against whites is fine, but it won’t stop without white advocacy. Mr. Musk bears more responsibility, because while non-white racial advocates and even Mr. Musk’s own critics remain on Twitter, many white advocates (including us) are still banned. There has not been the restoration of free speech to the pre-2017 norms that many hoped for when the TechnoKing took over.

Similarly, Mr. Adams has shown that without white advocacy, there’s no path forward. Rasmussen poll or not, many blacks don’t think it’s OK to be white, but our rulers won’t let us leave. We remain powerless victims, endlessly complaining that blacks aren’t anti-racist enough.

Still, disengagement is still a “radical” solution. We shouldn’t judge Scott Adams or Elon Musk too harshly. Both have suffered, especially Mr. Adams. Besides, both are pointing out the absurdity of the current creed. Awakening to harsh truths can’t be where it ends, but it is where it must begin.