A new book from Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert comic strip, won’t be published after the cartoonist made racist remarks on the YouTube show he hosts, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Portfolio, an imprint of Penguin Random House, had planned to publish Adams’ Reframe Your Brain: The User Interface for Happiness and Success on Sept. 12. On Monday, Adams tweeted, “My publisher for non-Dilbert books has canceled my upcoming book and the entire backlist. Still no disagreement about my point of view. My book agent canceled me too.”
Webpages for the book on Amazon and on the Penguin Random House have been removed. The publisher declined to comment to the Journal on the book’s cancellation.
Adams drew substantial criticism after an episode of his YouTube show, Real Coffee With Scott Adams, streamed last week. On the show, Adams discussed a poll that asked voters whether they agreed with the statement “It’s OK to be White,” a slogan associated with the alt-right, and later adopted by White supremacists.
According to Adams, 26% of Black respondents said they disagreed with the statement, and another 21% said they weren’t sure.
“If nearly half of all Blacks are not OK with White people….that’s a hate group,” Adams said. “The best advice I would give to White people is to get the hell away from Black people. Just get the fuck away.”
After his comments, hundreds of newspapers dropped the Dilbert strip, and the media company Andrews McMeel Universal announced it had terminated its relationship with Adams.
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
