Race: The Final Frontier

[Mongrel]

Not much to add other than yeah, that mask's been off... geez, probably over a decade now? Maybe longer for people who still read his comics regularly. Surprised it took this long, really, because it had been pretty transparent for the last few.

[Sharkey]

Ohhh, that's why people have been talking about Al Capp for the first time in like, ever. It seems like it's part of the natural life cycle of a syndicated cartoonist to either retire at their peak or molt into a right wing sex pest.

[Mazian]

Surprising no one, Elon Musk is already trumpeting his support for Adams. Just in case anyone forgot Musk is a product of apartheid South Africa.

[Thad]

Not much to add other than yeah, that mask's been off... geez, probably over a decade now?

Yeah, he compared women demanding equal pay to children begging for candy back in 2011, so over a decade.

Maybe longer for people who still read his comics regularly.

I haven't read his comics regularly since the '90s but AFAICT he mostly kept them pretty bland and inoffensive, or at least maintained plausible deniability in them, until a few months back when he introduced his first Black character with the One Joke.

Surprised it took this long, really, because it had been pretty transparent for the last few.

I'm not really surprised, in the sense that the mainstream press is used to willfully turning a blind eye toward open bigotry by famous people (see also the past couple weeks' return to the "no, JK Rowling is totally not a transphobe, that's just a smear invented by activists" well in print and podcast formats). To a certain extent, it's clearly intentional on Adams's part; he said outright, a few months back, that he was trying to get canceled; introducing a Black character with the line "Actually, I identify as white" still didn't get the papers to bat an eye, and so he kept ratcheting the rhetoric up until they couldn't ignore it anymore.

[Thad]

Welp, if his goal really was to flame out in as spectacular a fashion as possible, I'd say it's been a resounding success of failure.

His syndicate and book publisher have dropped him; Dilbert's not on gocomics.com anymore and, once they burn through whatever inventory is left, won't be in newspapers or bookstores anymore either.

I guess we'll find out in the next couple of years whether he had enough money saved up that he could afford this, or if he ends up losing his house over it. Because the dude's options for income for the remainder of his life are pretty much limited to being a D-list right-wing provocateur. C-list, tops.

[Mongrel]

[zaratustra]

no no

he's saying *they* were racist to *him* by firing him

[Thad]

Someone on Mastodon reminded me of this 2011 Laura Hudson article: Scott Adams Poses as His Own Fan on Message Boards to Defend Himself

CW for sexism and racism.

I sure do miss ComicsAlliance.

[KingRoyal]

Feeling wistful for that period in 2008 when he lost the ability to talk

[Destynova]

Welp, if his goal really was to flame out in as spectacular a fashion as possible, I'd say it's been a resounding success of failure.

His syndicate and book publisher have dropped him; Dilbert's not on gocomics.com anymore and, once they burn through whatever inventory is left, won't be in newspapers or bookstores anymore either.

I guess we'll find out in the next couple of years whether he had enough money saved up that he could afford this, or if he ends up losing his house over it. Because the dude's options for income for the remainder of his life are pretty much limited to being a D-list right-wing provocateur. C-list, tops.

I figure he is well off enough and old enough to retire. Couple mil with merchandising or even 1 million would be enough.

[Thad]

Oh, I don't doubt that he's made enough money to retire on. The question is whether he's managed to keep it.

He's not really known for living a lavish lifestyle or making risky investments, but on the other hand he is known for believing in dodgy woo-woo nonsense and thinking he knows more about complex subjects than experts. He's kind of the perfect mark for a financial scam. Or, failing that, the kind of guy who's absolutely certain his financial decisions are all brilliant no matter what his accountant tells him.

[Thad]

MLK’s famous criticism of Malcolm X was a ‘fraud,’ author finds

Jonathan Eig was deep in the Duke University archives researching his new biography of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. when he made an alarming discovery: King’s harshest and most famous criticism of Malcolm X, in which he accused his fellow civil rights leader of “fiery, demagogic oratory,” appears to have been fabricated.

“I think its historic reverberations are huge,” Eig told The Washington Post. “We’ve been teaching people for decades, for generations, that King had this harsh criticism of Malcolm X, and it’s just not true.”

The quote came from a January 1965 Playboy interview with author Alex Haley, a then-43-year-old Black journalist, and was the longest published interview King ever did. Because of the severity of King’s criticism, it has been repeated countless times, cast as a dividing line between King and Malcolm X. The new revelation “shows that King was much more open-minded about Malcolm than we’ve tended to portray him,” Eig said.

[...]

On Page 60 of the 84-page document, Haley asks, “Dr. King, would you care to comment upon the articulate former Black Muslim, Malcolm X?”

King responds: “I have met Malcolm X, but circumstances didn’t enable me to talk with him for more than a minute. I totally disagree with many of his political and philosophical views, as I understand them. He is very articulate, as you say. I don’t want to seem to sound as if I feel so self-righteous, or absolutist, that I think I have the only truth, the only way. Maybe he does have some of the answer. But I know that I have so often felt that I wished that he would talk less of violence, because I don’t think that violence can solve our problem. And in his litany of expressing the despair of the Negro, without offering a positive, creative approach, I think that he falls into a rut sometimes.”

That is not how King’s response appeared in the published interview. While the top part is nearly identical with the transcript, it ended in Playboy like this: “And in his litany of articulating the despair of the Negro without offering any positive, creative alternative, I feel that Malcolm has done himself and our people a great disservice. Fiery, demagogic oratory in the black ghettos, urging Negroes to arm themselves and prepare to engage in violence, as he has done, can reap nothing but grief.”

[links not included in copy-paste]

[Büge]

[Friday]

MLK’s famous criticism of Malcolm X was a ‘fraud,’ author finds

Jonathan Eig was deep in the Duke University archives researching his new biography of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. when he made an alarming discovery: King’s harshest and most famous criticism of Malcolm X, in which he accused his fellow civil rights leader of “fiery, demagogic oratory,” appears to have been fabricated.

“I think its historic reverberations are huge,” Eig told The Washington Post. “We’ve been teaching people for decades, for generations, that King had this harsh criticism of Malcolm X, and it’s just not true.”

The quote came from a January 1965 Playboy interview with author Alex Haley, a then-43-year-old Black journalist, and was the longest published interview King ever did. Because of the severity of King’s criticism, it has been repeated countless times, cast as a dividing line between King and Malcolm X. The new revelation “shows that King was much more open-minded about Malcolm than we’ve tended to portray him,” Eig said.

[...]

On Page 60 of the 84-page document, Haley asks, “Dr. King, would you care to comment upon the articulate former Black Muslim, Malcolm X?”

King responds: “I have met Malcolm X, but circumstances didn’t enable me to talk with him for more than a minute. I totally disagree with many of his political and philosophical views, as I understand them. He is very articulate, as you say. I don’t want to seem to sound as if I feel so self-righteous, or absolutist, that I think I have the only truth, the only way. Maybe he does have some of the answer. But I know that I have so often felt that I wished that he would talk less of violence, because I don’t think that violence can solve our problem. And in his litany of expressing the despair of the Negro, without offering a positive, creative approach, I think that he falls into a rut sometimes.”

That is not how King’s response appeared in the published interview. While the top part is nearly identical with the transcript, it ended in Playboy like this: “And in his litany of articulating the despair of the Negro without offering any positive, creative alternative, I feel that Malcolm has done himself and our people a great disservice. Fiery, demagogic oratory in the black ghettos, urging Negroes to arm themselves and prepare to engage in violence, as he has done, can reap nothing but grief.”

[links not included in copy-paste]

Jesus fucking christ

I have to admit, as a great fan (and student) of both men, that this quote has basically haunted me for decades.

To learn that it was just crafted wholesale as a way to put down Malcom X by putting words in the mouth of a man as great as King...

I mean, some of the feeling was real. "I totally disagree with many of his political and philosophical views", isn't indirect.

But adding that last part is a real crime. A crime that has affected millions in how they viewed both men, including me. Fuck whoever lying bastard piece of shit that did that.

[Joxam]

The evilest thing about that is they're not even doing away with it. They're just replacing them with Nepalese Gurkhas.

[Thad]

Fuck whoever lying bastard piece of shit that did that.

That'd be Alex Haley, and this isn't the first time he's been caught making shit up. From the same article:

Haley’s legacy has been tarnished by accusations of plagiarism and historical inaccuracy in his most famous book, “Roots,” but this latest finding could open up more of his work to criticism, especially “The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley” — released just months after Malcolm X’s assassination in 1965.