“How does it feel to be Me” — Eddie Kane of the Five Heart Beats
Scott Adams receivedthis letter in response this strip and displayed it on his blog:
Dear Mr. Adams,
I am writing in regards to the “Dilbert” cartoon that was published in the Gazette-Mail in Charleston, West Virginia on Saturday, February 18th. I have long enjoyed your cartoon strip, having spent eight years at Marshall University confined to a tiny cubicle (even though I was a full professor) and having to track the amount of paper I used due to budget constraints.
I am currently the co-director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Gender in Appalachia and teach in the Appalachian Studies graduate certificate program at Marshall’s graduate college. One of my interests is the ways in which stereotypes of Appalachians in the general culture have rationalized and justified the historic mistreatment of Appalachians as an ethnic group.
Your cartoon “killed” an inebriated hillbilly. He was lying on a log with a jug at his side (probably moonshine?) and wearing bib overalls. He was booted off the log into a chasm and a certain fate. Now, let me ask you a question. Would you have drawn that cartoon of a drunk Irishman, a Jew, a black person, an Hispanic person? I doubt it very much. Most Americans are by now sensitized to the damage that such stereotypes represent for minority groups. And yet you, as well as many others, still feel free to picture hillbillies (translate: Appalachians) in this way.
True when I saw this yesterday, I laughed. And true, I didn’t think about how this might offend the sensibilities of Appalachians. And I probably should feel more sympathetic. Honestly. I don’t.
