The Scott Adams Scandal in Reverse Proves Our Racial Double Standard

S o, now we know exactly “what would happen if some liberal said what Scott Adams did.” Nothing at all.

As is now almost universally known, on a February 22 episode of his Coffee with Scott Adams podcast, the creator of Dilbert and Dogbert drew fire for engaging in what was widely labeled a racist rant. In the context of some depressing data about U.S. race relations — which I argue that he misinterpreted — Adams claimed that there is “no fixing” contemporary American racial dynamics and that white citizens should “get the hell away from black people.” While some writers have contended that Adams was being intentionally hyperbolic, he was universally — and, to most, justifiably — condemned for his series of remarks.

At the same time, however, several cynical and socially maladjusted right-wingers and centrists — in fact, including moi — could not resist asking: Would there be any penalty at all if a black dude, or purple-haired white “ally,” said the same things with the races reversed? Well, someone did. During a March 1 webinar that seems to have gone viral only recently, “anti-racist educator” Robin DiAngelo advised a Zoom room of minority professionals to “get away from white people and have some community with each other.”

While this has been less widely commented on, the White Fragility author also advocated for the removal of those who do not accept contemporary “woke” ideology from the workforce. “In 2023,” she contended, “we have to see the ability to engage in these conversations . . . as a basic qualification.” Any employees refusing or reluctant to do so are “just simply not qualified [for] today’s workplace.”

Unlike Adams, who lost his cartoon empire in two MMMbops and half a Scaramucci, DiAngelo received zero penalty for any of her comments. There was not proportionately less backlash, but rather almost none at all — with the exception of a few online darts from conservative wits such as Chris Rufo. A sober discussion of the seminar in question, from Yahoo News, describes a panel of “diversity, equity, and inclusion consultants” solemnly “[nodding] in agreement” as DiAngelo spoke.

Sales of the author’s books seem to have actually improved since the (non)controversy began. White Fragility currently sits at No. 2,060 among all texts globally, placing No. 5 in the “Discrimination and Racism” category on Amazon, and No. 10 overall in “Cultural Anthropology.” The newer Nice Racism is not far back in terms of overall sales, and currently holds down the No. 23 spot in “Civil Rights and Liberties.”

It might be argued that DiAngelo’s comments were somehow less offensive than Adams’s — she merely called for frequent retreats to self-segregated “affinity groups” rather than a presumably permanent flight to the hills — but hers was just one recent case of public left-bloc support for neo–Jim Crow. Just last week, Michigan’s Grand Valley State University (GVSU), a very pleasant Research-2 institution in the U.S. heartland, attracted attention after offering no fewer than five separate and largely segregated “cultural graduations” to black, Latino, Native American, Asian, and even gay Laker students.

Other than a single, combined, main ceremony, no such graduation event appears to exist for white kids — or, for that matter, for low-income or first-generation Michiganders who genuinely struggled through university. So far as I can tell, GVSU plans to proceed with all six ceremonies despite online criticism. A thoughtful Newsweek piece on the whole thing notes that the college is hardly alone: “Separate graduation events for different communities have sprung up at a number of American universities over the past few years. Supporters argue they showcase pride in an institution’s diversity.”

All of this helps illustrate something that is both so taken for granted and so taboo to discuss that it is almost never mentioned in modern upper-middle-class life: There exists a glaring double standard around the treatment of identical behavior, depending upon whether it is done by or to support whites, or by/to support “POC.” This statement is not some nonempirical Republican whine. Examples abound. To pick perhaps the most obvious: Entire words are off-limits to my pale countrymen in any context. While this rule of conduct makes sense for hostile uses of the n-word, teachers and college professors are not infrequently fired for reading it out while teaching Mark Twain. An actual 36-response forum on the Quora debate site exists titled: “Why Do People Still Read Tom Sawyer Even Though It Uses Racist Terminology?” And remember ousted Times man Donald McNeil? (For that matter, a CNN piece just dead-seriously declared it a matter of racism for whites to use online memes featuring black actors or characters. Of course, no such ban has ever been suggested in reverse.)

Meanwhile, actual historical figures from the European past, such as Anne Boleyn or Britain’s Queen Charlotte, are fairly regularly “made black,” for the purpose of promoting diversity or boosting group pride. Such color changes in reverse — with the amusing sometime-exception of Jesus Christ — seem almost entirely verboten. We Americans hear often, and sometimes accurately, about “implicit bias” targeting persons of color. However, it seems obvious to anyone with open eyes that there is today a great deal of rather explicit bias (affirmative action comes first to mind) against white Yanks.

Some of the examples just given are more amusing than terrifying. And — as a professor at a historically black college myself — it strikes me that a bit of a double standard toward racialist minority behavior made sense when the United States was 90 percent Caucasian and virtually all positions of power were occupied by whites. Now, however, the same duality is becoming unfair and even dangerous in a country split about 60/40 between whites and various minority groups.

Today, either seven or eight (depending on how you count South Africans) of the ten highest-earning American population groups are non-white. Speaking frankly, there does not seem to be much reason for Indian- or Nigerian-Americans — by most accounts the richest group in the country and the best-educated, respectively — to be eligible for group-specific commencement ceremonies or select government contracts while the striving Appalachian students in many of my classes are not. More and more whites seem to be realizing this and becoming upset about it. And, as the comments under any racial fistfight video posted to Twitter or Reddit make clear, a Caucasian racial consciousness that forms out of a perception of unfair treatment and frequent abuse is likely to be an ugly thing indeed.

So let’s head that danger off at the pass. The solution here is remarkably simple, if extremely difficult to implement. In a country as huge and diverse as the USA, where essentially no modern minority immigrant groups have the sort of moral claim on the fisc that, say, Native Americans might argue, all people must be treated equally. Honest conversations about essentially anything (white racism, black crime rates, illegal immigration) must be possible along racial and ethnic lines — not merely allowed in one direction.

And, once we settle on a final standard for acceptable public speech, it must either punish both Adams and DiAngelo, or neither. A house divided, as to what the most basic rules of behavior are, cannot long stand.