A Mass. newspaper is leaving its ‘Dilbert’ space blank to protest racism

Readers of The Sun Chronicle in Attleboro opened their newspapers Monday to find a blank space where the usual “Dilbert” comic strip once ran.

It wasn’t a printing error; the newspaper announced earlier this week that it has opted to stop publishing “Dilbert” following racist remarks by Scott Adams, the comic’s creator. 

In a YouTube livestream last week, Adams referenced a Rasmussen Reports poll that found only a slim majority — 53% — of Black Americans agreed with the statement “it’s okay to be white.” Another 26% of respondents disagreed, while 21% were unsure. 

Adams, who is white, called Black people “a hate group” and urged white people to “just get the hell away” from them, according to The New York Times. 

In a note published on The Sun Chronicle’s website Monday, Executive Editor Craig Borges called Adams’s comments “appalling to say the least.”

“The Sun Chronicle will not provide a platform for a racist,” Borges wrote. “As Cleveland Plain Dealer editor Chris Quinn said so succinctly, ‘this was not a difficult decision.’”

The empty space that ran in lieu of Monday’s “Dilbert” is not a one-off, according to Borges.

“That blank space will remain for the entire month of March as a reminder of the racism that pervades our society daily,” he explained. 

In a phone interview with Boston.com, Borges explained that the newspaper’s decision is both an act of protest against racism and a way to ensure the “Dilbert” controversy won’t be lost in the next news cycle.

“I knew it would just be forgotten, like all the news cycle is,” he said. “And I just wanted it to last. I wanted to emphasize what this guy said is just not acceptable.”

He said The Sun Chronicle hasn’t decided on a replacement yet, though potential options could include another comic, an ad, or a puzzle.

Starting Thursday, the newspaper will also be using the space to run quotes about racism from famous figures “to just drive home that racism is alive and kicking, and despite what a lot of people on the right may say, it is there, and he [Adams] is a perfect example,” Borges said.

He said The Sun Chronicle has gotten mainly positive feedback so far from its subscribers, with some pushback, including the argument that Adams was exercising his freedom of speech.

“If he [Adams] wants to say that, he can say that all he wants,” Borges countered. “The Sun Chronicle is not going to support him financially for his views. He can start his own newspaper. … He’s not going to go on our backs and push his racist views using The Sun Chronicle.”

The Sun Chronicle was among dozens of newspapers that dropped “Dilbert” following Adams’s comments, according to The Associated Press. Andrews McMeel Universal, the company that distributed the strip, also severed ties with Adams. 

The decline of “Dilbert” came as little surprise for some in the comic industry. 

Adams “kind of ran out of office jokes and started integrating all this other stuff so after a while, it became hard to distinguish between Scott Adams and ‘Dilbert,’” Mike Peterson, columnist for the industry blog The Daily Cartoonist, told The Associated Press.

Adams had previously described people who are unvaccinated against COVID-19 as the real “winners” of the pandemic and questioned the accuracy of the Holocaust death toll, NPR reported.

“It begs the question, now that everyone is piling on him, what took so long?” Malden, Mass. native Keith Knight, a cartoonist and co-creator of the Hulu show “Woke,” told the news outlet.

“Tom the Dancing Bug” cartoonist Ruben Bolling (the nom de plume of Tufts and Harvard Law grad Ken Fisher) satirized the Scott Adams controversy in a “Dilbert” parody.

Abby Patkin

Staff Writer

Abby Patkin is a general assignment news reporter whose work touches on public transit, crime, health, and everything in between.

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