Newspapers are dropping the Dilbert comic strip after the creator's racist rants. 'Very few readers noticed' the comic's absence, one editor said.

• Newspapers nationwide are pulling "Dilbert" after creator Scott Adams made racist comments.
• Adams said that white people should "stay the hell away" from Black people in a YouTube video.

Newspapers across the country have begun dropping the comic "Dilbert" from their pages after Scott Adams, the cartoon's creator, went on a racist rant in a YouTube video.

Adams posted a video to his YouTube channel on February 22 where he described Black people as a "hate group" and said that white people should "get the hell away" from Black people.

"That's a hate group and I don't want to have anything to do with them," Adams said in the video. "And I would say the best advice I could give to white people is to get the hell away from Black people."

Adams did not respond to Insider's request for comment.

The San Fransisco Chronicle dropped "Dilbert" from its pages in October 2022, after some comic strips made jokes that reparations for African Americans due to slavery should be claimed by underperforming office workers, and that straight men should pretend to be gay to get around workplace diversity efforts, editor-in-chief, Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, said, according to the paper.

"His strip went from being hilarious to being hurtful and mean," Garcia-Ruiz said, according to the paper. "Very few readers noticed when we killed it and we only had a handful of complaints. We had many more complaints when we stopped other strips."

Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in the United States, announced that it would be dropping "Dilbert" from all of its papers on Saturday. Gannett owns USA Today and all local newspapers in the USA Today network, including The Detroit Free Press, the Indianapolis Star, and The Tennessean, among others.

"Recent discriminatory comments by the creator, Scott Adams, have influenced our decision to discontinue publishing his comic. While we respect and encourage free speech, his views do not align with our editorial or business values as an organization," a Gannett spokesperson said in a statement to Insider on Saturday.

"At Gannett, we lead with inclusion and strive to maintain a respectful and equitable environment for the diverse communities we serve nationwide," the statement continued.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer also announced that it would be dropping "Dilbert" from its pages in a letter from editor Chris Quinn. Quinn called Adam's comments in the video a "racist rant" and said that it was "not a difficult decision" to pull the comic from the Plain Dealer.