So about Scott Adams and his cancelling

I took the time to watch the lion's share of the Hotep Jesus interview which was interesting to say the least.

Scott Adams is making the play that this was all about taking one for the team so that we could have an honest discussion. The interview with Hotep was just that. Two very intelligent people taking reasonably back and forth about a touchy subject in a manner that most people are just unwilling (or so emotionally stunted that they are incapable) of doing.

The interesting thing was how often Adams made points that had Hotep bobbing his head up and down in agreement. It was also refreshing to see people take things that they never thought of and not become defensive. If you could script a good discussion between people on opposite sides of an argument really listening to each other, allowing each other to give their points uninterrupted, providing real back and forth, and not just going straight to "rhetoric". This would be the script.

It is entirely possible that Scott Adams ended Dilbert's run in most newspapers by coming out and saying what many people probably would like to say. But Scott Adams is 65 years old and has a net worth between 50-75 million dollars. If someone of substance was in a position to fall on the sword to start a larger conversation, Adams is probably the guy who can both fall on the sword and start the discussion and and still live happily ever after. In fact if he continues to get these sorts of opportunities to make his points, then he would probably say it was worth the trade.

So what did Adams say? Well he was responding to a poll that suggested nearly 50% of the black community do not agree with the statement that it is "Okay to be white". He suggested that there comes a point when you have to just stay away from the people who are going to hate you no matter what you do. So he suggested that white people just stay the hell away from black people. He clarifies by saying this is not an argument to shun your black friends or neighbors. But in the broader sense of the idea, that white people should simply stay away from the situations where there will be large portions of black people who simply will never accept them as decent human beings.

That was the intent of the interview. To bring him on to discuss this statement. But Adams is actually given a forum here to make clarifications, add context, and provide a larger playing field for the debate.

Adams curiously suggests that he is a leftist who just has conservative fans (could have fooled me) and that he "identified" as black. He referred a lot to systemic racism and even suggested he was in favor of reparations. That being said, he describes is own ideas of systemic racism in the prism of the school system (rather than caused by white people) and his idea of reparations is not what most people think of as reparations. What he does is cleverly agree to the rhetorical wording of an issue while also disagreeing with the premise.

For instance, he says he is in favor of reparations, but that reparations where one group of people who do not feel that they owe anything is forced to pay to a another group of people who do feel they are owed is a non-starter and would make things worse. Obviously that is what every black person believes is reparations. He suggests that reparation be something that both sides could agree with (such as busting up the teachers unions and providing better schooling options for blacks and underprivileged). He is simply using the liberal strategy of redefining a word to meet his own needs.

Adams also gets into the whole concept of teaching an entire generation of children that the reason that black people might not get ahead in life is because of white people and the systemic racism that is caused by... white people. Basically the core of CRT. The argument is how much "worse" will this sort of polling get (where barely half of blacks think it is even "okay to be white") when you are literally teaching black children that white people cause all of their troubles. How do they "not" expect that the next generation of blacks will be even more "anti-white" than the current generations. Why would any reasonable white person want to be a part of something where they are singled out and blamed for things they personally had nothing to do with.

We are supposed to be coming together in society. But too many people still want to tear us down.

I get a sense that Hotep has muted agreement on many of these points and he also suggested that anecdotally that 40-50 percent of black people having issues with white people seems in line with his reality. He did disagree on certain points, but these disagreements were such that (again) there was a true desire to listen. I also got the impression that Hotep might have actually learned some things that he was unaware of. He certainly has a lot of built in stereotypes about white conservatives that are 180 degrees from what you will see from most of the white conservatives we deal with in our circles.

The interview is long. About 2 hours. I listened to most of it while my wife was watching a movie that did not interest me. This interview did. I think they probably could have talked for 3-4 hours and still had discussion points to make. We will see in the aftermath is Hotep continues to provide the respect he gave in the interview or pivots later on to turn on Adams. I will also be curious if Adams is given any other forums. There is nobody in the mainstream media who could win a valid debate with Adams on any of these subjects. They would only do an interview if the deck was already stacked in their favor.