Elon Musk calls US media and schools ‘racist against whites & Asians’

Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, Tesla and Twitter, has been accused of “media,” and “elite colleges and high schools” of being “racist” against whites and Asians, espousing views without providing any evidence.

Musk posted comments on Twitter, where he has nearly 130 million followers, in response to news that media organizations across the country decided to remove the “Dilbert” comic from syndication after its creator, Scott Adams, posted racist remarks in a video. on his YouTube channel last week.

In the video, Adams discusses a poll conducted by the right-leaning Rasmussen Reports that says 26% of Black respondents disagree with the statement “It’s okay to be white.” The phrase referenced in the poll was labeled a “hate slogan” by the Anti-Defamation League. In the video, Adams called black people who rejected the sentence a “hate group.”

Adams also said that he chose to live in a community where few or no black people lived, and later advised his white audience to “get rid of black people,” saying that he didn’t “want to have anything. the same.”

Adams’ video was published during Black History Month in the US, which was established in 1976 by President Gerald Ford as a period to honor the struggles and contributions of Black Americans.

Among the news outlets that released “Dilbert” were The Los Angeles Times, The Oregonian, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Washington Post and USA Today.

Brian Levin, a civil rights attorney and director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University said, in response to Musk’s tweets:

“Systemic racism requires not only widespread fanaticism in a group but also a structural component that allows discrimination and oppression to be imposed on minorities due to the advantage of access and power. Profiles of cases of racial discrimination may not be in the best position to advise.”

As CNBC previously reported, a San Francisco federal court ruled that Tesla must pay compensation to a former worker, Owen Diaz, after he suffered a hostile work environment and racial abuse at the company’s factory where he previously worked as an elevator operator.

Additionally, the EEOC, the federal agency responsible for enforcing civil rights laws against discrimination in the workplace, has issued a finding of cause against Tesla according to the company’s financial filings last year.

Prior to the EEOC’s findings, the California Department of Civil Rights (formerly known as the Department of Fair Employment and Housing) sued Tesla after a three-year investigation, alleging widespread racial discrimination at Tesla factories and facilities across the state.

The CRD alleged that Tesla has kept Black workers in lower-level roles in the company even though they have the skills and experience to be promoted to more senior roles; sent other Black workers demanding, dangerous and dirty work in their facilities; and retaliating against Black workers who formally complained about what they were subjected to, including racist slurs used by managers.

Tesla called the CRD lawsuit “misguided,” and later sued the agency.

Musk made claims about “the media” and several higher education institutions and high schools in the US without providing any evidence.

Specifically, he wrote, “The media is racist.” He then added, “For a *very* long time, the US media was racist against non-whites, now they are racist against whites & Asians. The same thing is happening to colleges & high schools in America. Maybe they can try not to be racist.”

According to Pew Research, newsroom employees are more likely to be white (and male) than US workers overall. In film and TV, according to McKinsey research, “Black talent is underrepresented in the industry, especially on screen.” Less than 6% of writers, directors, and producers of US-produced films are Black, McKinsey found.

According to the most recent US Census Bureau data available, about 29% of non-Hispanic whites in the US have attained a bachelor’s degree or higher level of education, about 18.4% of blacks in the US have attained that level of education, and about 51, 3% of Asians have attained this level of education.

Despite the educational achievements of Asian Americans, Asians are underrepresented in leadership roles in US academic libraries and higher education, according to research by Mihoko Hosoi, published in the Journal of Library Administration in 2022.

Musk also responded to one Twitter account that said unarmed white people affected by police violence receive a fraction of the media attention paid to black people injured or killed by police. Musk claimed that the media coverage was “Greetly disproportionate to promoting a false narrative.”

According to research by the Brookings Institute, “Blacks are 3.5 times more likely than whites to be killed by police when blacks are unarmed or unarmed,” and “Black teens are 21 times more likely than white teens to be killed by police.” .”

Imran Ahmed, CEO and founder of the Center for Countering Digital Hate said in response to Musk’s tweets, “Elon Musk tries to portray himself as a weird and strange anti-racism champion, but in fact when he took to Twitter, he made a series of disturbing decisions to change the rules to accept the taste racist hate is back on these platforms and, as our research shows, it is profiting from the controversy and attention that hate generates.

Ahmed also urged the remaining advertisers to re-evaluate whether they want to spend their budgets on Twitter, given Musk’s confidence and the changes he has made to the Twitter platform.

Since leading the $44 billion leveraged buyout of Twitter late last year, and appointing “Chief Twit” or CEO, Musk has created controversy and lost money in the social media business.

On Musk’s watch, Twitter has restored the accounts of several previously banned and divisive figures, including neo-Nazi website founder Andrew Anglin. The move led to an unprecedented rise in hate speech on the platform, the Center found, and attracted direct outcry from civil rights leaders.

Hundreds of Twitter’s top advertisers have since stopped or scaled back their ad spending there. One company estimated that Twitter’s ad revenue fell as much as 70% in December from a year earlier, Reuters reported. Musk acknowledged in a November tweet that the company experienced a “huge revenue drop” after advertisers paused spending on the social media platform.

Musk and representatives at Twitter, SpaceX, and Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment.