Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, Tesla, and Twitter, expressed his opinions without presenting any proof on Sunday, accusing “the media” and “elite colleges and high schools” of being “racist” towards white and Asian people. Musk responded to news that media outlets throughout the nation opted to pull the comic strip “Dilbert” from syndication after its writer, Scott Adams, delivered a racist rant in a video on his YouTube channel last week by posting his thoughts on Twitter, where he has almost 130 million followers.
Adams talked about a right-leaning Rasmussen Reports survey in which 26% of Black respondents disagreed with the phrase “It’s OK to be white.” Being white is OK. The Anti-Defamation League has designated the phrase that was the subject of their survey as a “hate slogan.” Adams referred to the Black community in his video as a “hate group” if they disagreed with it.
Elon Musk made the statement about “the media”
Moreover, Adams said he personally selected to reside in a neighborhood with little to no Black population before telling his white audience to “stay the hell away from Black people” because he “didn’t want to have anything to do with them.” U.S. President Gerald Ford inaugurated Black History Month in 1976 as a time to recognize the difficulties and accomplishments of African People. Adams’ film was released during this time. The Los Angeles Times, The Oregonian, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Washington Post, and USA Today were the news organizations that stopped running “Dilbert.”
In reaction to Musk’s tweets, a human rights lawyer and head of California State University’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, Brian Levin, stated: “Systemic racism requires not only widespread bigotry to be held within a group but also a structural component that allows discrimination and oppression to be imposed on a minority because of advantage of access and power. A white billionaire from South Africa who recently lost a high-profile racial discrimination case may not be in the best position to offer counsel.”
As previously reported by CNBC, a federal court in San Francisco determined that Tesla must make restitution to Owen Diaz, a former employee who suffered a hostile work environment and racial harassment at the company’s plant where he had previously worked as an elevator operator. According to a financial report by the business last year, the EEOC, a federal organisation upholding civil rights rules against job discrimination, has also taken action against Tesla. Musk made statements about “the media,” some US colleges, and secondary schools without supporting information.
Black individuals receive more attention
Asian Americans are underrepresented in leadership positions in American academic libraries and higher education, despite their educational success, according to a study by Mihoko Hosoi, published in the Journal of Library Administration in 2022. Musk also responded to a Twitter account that claimed that Black individuals who are hurt or murdered by police receive more media attention than unarmed White persons who are victims of police violence. The media’s attention, according to Musk, is “very disproportionate to propagate a false narrative.”
Since taking the helm of a leveraged $44 billion acquisition of Twitter late last year and naming himself “Chief Twit,” or CEO, Musk has sparked controversy and suffered financial losses in the social media industry.
