As of today’s edition, The Dispatch will no longer carry the comic strip, “Dilbert,” joining hundreds of other newspapers who made the same decision after the strip’s creator,  Scott Adams, unleashed a racist rant Saturday on a YouTube livestream.

In that livestream, Adams made note of a Rasmussen Poll conducted earlier this month that posed the question, “Is it OK to be white?”

“Nearly half of all Blacks are not OK with white people, according to this poll,” Adams said, misinterpreting the results of the poll. “That’s a hate group and I don’t want to have anything to do with them.”

“The best advice I could give to white people is to get the hell away from Black people,” he continued. “Wherever you have to go, just get away. There’s no fixing this. This can’t be fixed. You just have to escape.”

Let’s be clear here: It was an asinine polling question to begin with. Asking if it’s OK to be something you cannot “stop being” is pointless.

Within hours of Adams’ livestream, newspapers began to announce they would no longer carry the strip.

Cleveland Plain Dealer editor Dan Quinn put his newspaper’s move to drop the strip succinctly: “This was not a difficult decision,” he said.

Newspapers, especially in America, have a long tradition of standing up for free speech. Ideas should be discussed and debated, not suppressed. A newspaper presents a wonderful forum for that.

The Dispatch firmly believes in open discourse, even when the subject matter is uncomfortable.

Yet, there are thresholds that should not be crossed.

We would not provide a platform to the poll respondents who said it’s not ok to be white; similarly, we will not provide a platform to Adams.

Throughout history comic strips have created controversy. “Doonesbury” remains the most familiar example. Since it was first published in 1970, the strip became the most overtly political strip in history. Newspapers often refused to carry the strip when it involved particular storylines they found offensive. In 1973, The Lincoln Journal in Nebraska became the first newspaper to move Doonesbury to its editorial page. Many others have followed suit over the years, recognizing that the strip, like traditional editorial cartoons, belongs in a space readers understand as a forum for debating political ideas.

Even the best-loved comic strip of all time was not immune to criticism. When Peanuts creator Charles Schulz introduced the strip’s first Black character, Franklin, in 1968, Schulz’s distributor pressured him to eliminate the character because Franklin’s presence might offend pro-segregation Southerners. Schulz told him: “Either you print it just the way I draw it or I quit. How’s that?”

In a real sense, that’s exactly what Scott Adams has done. By expressing his fear/hatred of Blacks openly and unapologetically, he delivered an ultimatum to the newspapers that carried his strip.

Well, he got his answer. This was not cancel culture. It was self immolation.

The comics section should be one place where all of us can come to be amused and entertained, regardless of race, religion or political views. It’s a sanctuary from the ugliness we find in so many other places.

The Dispatch intends to keep it that way. Dilbert’s continued presence in our Comics section would have been a betrayal of that promise.

The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.

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