Comment by reducesuffering

with more than a whiff of neo-colonialist "why aren't they greeting us as liberators?" thinking.

I'm not sure if the whole thing isn't a bit unfair. Lots of people in America want to live in fancy low crime neighbourhoods rather than getto like but know not say a lot of their thinking so as to not be cancelled. The "ok to be white" thing was based on some dumb 4chan trolling, and quite likely got misinterpreted.

It starts by believing that there are distinct human races (which there are not). That alone makes most US Americans racist based on language alone. No (sane) German would nowadays speak of "Rasse" to describe someone with a different skin color.

Then, of course, racism consists of the believe that some races are intrinsically less valuable (in whatever sense) than others. I didn't see Scott Adams voice that part. But I might have missed it or it might have been implied.

But it's important to note that US identity politics of the last couple of decades looks increasingly weird to me as an outsider in any case.

It's obviously racist - but people have to stop assuming that word means one thing.

In that statement, it's not disdain for another group, it's disdain and resignation over racial politics.

He seems to in fact have empathy, but has become maligned for some reason.

He's seems to be 'giving up' on the cause and suggesting people go their separate ways.

It's frankly much more cynical than it is racist.

That's nothing near a traditional racist view.

It's the posture of a cynical, old angry man - not some kind of White Nationlist.

I'm not justifying anything but I am indicating that these thins are obviously nuanced.

That said - I'm reflecting on a single comment, not his entire body of ugly commentary.

From what I understood (and I might be misinterpreting or applying a too sympathetic filter) Scott was upset because of the spread of a political ideology (identity politics) and because of its tangible impacts on society (for example DEI policies). The entire tirade against black people starts from commenting an opinion poll according to which a sizable proportion of black interviewees disagrees with the statement "it's OK to be white"- which, applied to any other ethnic group, would be pure and blatant racism. So his reaction is that of someone who's upset and disappointed at learning that he's despised by some group of people for his ethnicity, and advises to just stay away from those who harbour these sentiments.

Black person here, and I too am finding this thread confusing.

Adams here was doing one of two things, either being blatantly racist or (perhaps the more generous, and perhaps more likely) being extremely bad at comedy?

It is of course "possible" to comedically play around with "what team am I on," but you have to be good at it or you look like -- if not racist -- a completely oblivious weirdo, and he was obviously one of the two here?