Summary

The article discusses the complexities and double standards surrounding contemporary discourse on racism, highlighting the reactions to various public figures' racist remarks and the inconsistent consequences they face.

Abstract

The article critically examines recent instances where public figures have made racist comments, with a particular focus on the differential treatment of these individuals based on their race and the content of their remarks. It points out the hypocrisy in the public's and media's response to racism, using examples such as Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, who faced severe backlash and cancellation for advocating racial segregation after misinterpreting a poll, while others like Elie Mystal and Sarah Jeong, who have made inflammatory anti-white remarks, have faced minimal consequences. The article argues that racism is not a zero-sum game and that true antiracism requires consistent opposition to all forms of racism, regardless of the perpetrator's race. It concludes by emphasizing the need to move beyond tribalism and to address racism in a comprehensive and equitable manner.

Opinions

The author suggests that Scott Adams' reaction to a poll about racial attitudes was an overreach and demonstrates a tenuous grasp of statistics, as well as a problematic interpretation of the data.
The article implies that there is a double standard in how racism is addressed, with certain racist remarks by people of color against white people being met with less severe consequences than similar remarks made by white people against people of color.
It is argued that the phrase "it's OK to be white" is a meme with origins in white supremacist circles, intended to provoke a reaction and frame any objection as anti-white.
The author criticizes the selective outrage and inconsistent application of cancel culture, noting that some individuals who have made racist comments have not suffered professionally, while others have been severely penalized.
The article references Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision of equality, emphasizing that supremacy of any race is dangerous and that the goal should be the freedom and brotherhood of the entire human race.
The author posits that true antiracism involves opposing racism in all its forms, even when it does not directly affect one's own group.
The piece concludes with a call to action to rise above racial tribalism and to strive for a society where racism is not tolerated against any group.

Is It OK To Be Racist?

The right side of racial history is the middle.

There’s been intense pressure to “do better” on racism over the past few years. Even, surprisingly enough, for children’s entertainment.

Dr Seuss’ books were pulled from shelves for allegedly racist imagery, Roald Dahl was scrubbed of potentially offensive references to race, sex and weight, even The Muppet Show received a content warning for unspecified “negative depictions of people or cultures.”

And the latest example of this activist overreach is Dilbert, whose creator, Scott Adams, has been dropped by every publication known to man just because he…oh, uh, called the whole of black America a hate group and advocated for racial segregation.

During a YouTube live stream, Adams reacted to a Rasmussen poll that asked 1000 Americans whether they agreed with the statement “it’s OK to be white.”

And after discovering that 8% of the 130 black respondents somewhat disagreed, with another 18% strongly disagreeing (that’s 34 black people in total), he offered some advice to any white people thinking about “helping" the black community:

If nearly half of all blacks are not okay with white people, according to this poll, not according to me…that’s a hate group…and I don’t want to have anything to do with ‘em.

And I would say, 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 f**k away. Wherever you have to go, just get away. Because there’s no fixing this. […] You just have to escape.

Hmmm…

Setting aside Adams’ tenuous grasp of statistics, you might have noticed that 8% + 18% does not equal 50%. To make the numbers seem as damning as possible, he decided that the 21% of black respondents who weren’t sure how they felt about the slogan were also “not okay with white people.”

You might also have noticed that he chose to ignore the 7% of white respondents who disagreed with the slogan (or 20% if we’re using Adams’ “not sure means hate” counting system).

And last but not least, you might have noticed the strange wording of the question. Participants weren’t asked how they felt about statements like, “black people and white people are equal,” or better yet, “I do/don’t hate white people,” but specifically, “it’s OK to be white.”

The pollsters chose this phrasing because “it’s OK to be white” is a meme (popularised by, amongst others, the former grand wizard of the KKK), used to bait “the libs™” into objecting to a seemingly innocuous statement:

These k*kes will keep saying that if you think it is okay to be white, you are evil. They will be screaming that as they get shoved into cattle cars.

Hmmmmmmm…

Ironically, Adams reacted with all the fragility the trolls and white supremacists were hoping to provoke. Just, sadly, for the wrong team.

So Adams was a dumbass, cancel culture worked its magic, and we can all pat ourselves on the back for solving racism, right?

Well, not quite. Believe it or not, there have been dozens of similar racist remarks in the past few years. And hardly anybody batted an eyelid!

Take, for example, Elie Mystal writing for the Nation back in 2021:

I’ve said, here and elsewhere, that one of the principal benefits of the pandemic is how I’ve been able to exclude racism and whiteness generally from my day-to-day life. […]

I have, of course, still had to interact with white people on Zoom or watch them on television or worry about whether they would succeed in reelecting a white supremacist president. But white people aren’t in my face all of the time. I can, more or less, only deal with whiteness when I want to.

Or pick any one of New York Times editorial board member Sara Jeong’s tweets from her #cancelwhitepeople era:

White people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants.

White men are bullshit.

White people have stopped breeding. You’ll all go extinct soon. That was my plan all along.

And who could forget Aruna Khilanani, who shared these thoughts about white people during a lecture at Yale:

White people make my blood boil […] I had fantasies of unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way, burying their body and wiping my bloody hands as I walked away relatively guiltless with a bounce in my step, like I did the world a favor.

Hmmmm…

It goes without saying that you couldn’t publish comments like these about any other “race,” right?

I mean, don’t get me wrong, as Adams proved, you can say them, and yes, there are several hate groups dedicated to preaching this kind of bile about people of colour. But you’re not going to hear it during a lecture at Yale. Or see it at the Emmys. Or read it in the broadsheets.

Yet none of these people lost their jobs. None of them had to offer carefully-worded, sycophantic apologies. The New York Times (one of the many publications that dropped Adams) even defended Jeong after her tweets went viral. And while some will claim that this is just payback, or karma, or better yet, that it isn’t racism at all, what it really is, is an attempt to maintain racism under different rules.

Martin Luther King warned against this mistake decades ago:

We will not seek to substitute one tyranny for another, thereby subverting justice. We will not seek to rise from a position of disadvantage to one of advantage. This is why I say that a doctrine of black supremacy is as dangerous as a doctrine of white supremacy.

God is not interested merely in the freedom of black men and brown men and yellow men, but God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race and the creation of a society where all men will live together as brothers.

Try as we might, we can’t have a partial ban on racism. We can’t pick and choose which skin colours we’re allowed to hate. We can’t keep clinging to this corrosive, divisive stupidity and wondering why we’re still not free of it.

Racism isn’t a competition where you win or lose. It’s not a game where you take turns being “it.” It’s a cancer that spreads until it infects everything. The only way to get rid of it is to cut all of it out.

In his spectacularly good essay, I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup, Scott Alexander argues that you only earn the right to call yourself “forgiving” if you forgive things that genuinely hurt you.

And in the same way, I’d argue that you only earn the right to call yourself “antiracist” if you oppose racism, whether or not it affects you.

Adams lived through the end of Jim Crow and contract buying and the war on black people…excuse me, drugs. He read the same news as everybody else about Charleston and Winthrop and Buffalo. He saw what happened to Rodney King and James Byrd Jr and Ahmaud Arbery, and not a word of “advice” for black people.

But one edgy survey and this man’s first idea is to call for racial segregation.

And while Mystal only advocated self-segregation, and Khilanani only fantasised about racial genocide, I think we can all agree that none of this leads anywhere productive.

The goal of antiracism isn’t to swap around who it’s acceptable to be racist towards every few hundred years. The goal is to outgrow this destructive, meaningless tribalism once and for all.

And I speak for at least 34 people (and therefore, apparently, all people) when I say we could all do better.

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