The following is a lightly edited transcript of remarks made by Jeff Charles during a Newsweek debate about controversial comments made by Dilbert creator Scott Adams about African-Americans. You can listen to the podcast here:
When I first saw the comments made by Dilbert creator Scott Adams, I knew what he was doing. The thing is, if you've listened to Scott Adams for a while, you know that he says things specifically to stir the pot. But this one might be a little bit worse than the other times have. I've listened to his subsequent interviews clarifying what he was trying to do. I don't necessarily think that that was the way to go about it because there are better ways to start a conversation and to start dialogue, but I do think that that's what he was trying to do.
My other point is that the Rasmussen poll that he was basing his statements on was faulty, and I knew that when I first saw it, but when I got to actually take a look at the numbers in that poll, they basically only polled 130 black people, 47% of which either said they were not sure if it's okay to be white, or disagreed with the statement. That adds up to about a little over 60 people. And that's somehow supposed to reflect the over 40 million African Americans living in the United States today? The whole thing was flawed from the get-go. Then we saw all these influencers using those results to further the division that we have in America today, which was very, very disappointing to say the least.
In the subsequent conversations that I saw Scott have, I thought they were interesting, but this was an opportunity to really have more of these conversations because we just yell at each other all the time. And so sometimes being provocative is necessary to get people's attention, but I think now people are more focused on what he said in that first video than they are on actually having conversations about race relations. Now everybody's focused on should Scott be canceled, or should he not be canceled? Was what he said racist, or was it just being provocative? Some people have taken this and actually used it to have more productive conversations, which is a good choice to make. But that's not what's happening overall, and that's why you have to be careful when you're using outrage.
Jeff Charles is the host of "A Fresh Perspective" podcast and a contributor for RedState and Liberty Nation.
The views in this article are the writer's own.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
