It doesn't seem well known - I can't find any many claims prior to the Summer of 2020.
I found one quote in passing from 2005 - note this in regards his working time frame from 1979 to 1995.
You got an MBA at night a few years later. This should have put you right on track for a boss-type position at the bank. What happened?
Well, one day, my boss called me in, and said they couldn’t promote a white male because there was too much attention on the fact that there was no diversity in senior management. She told me I didn’t have a future with the bank. And so I put my resumé out and went to Pacific Bell. A couple of years later, [Pacific Bell] told me exactly the same thing. And that’s when I started looking at cartooning as an option.
and
You were placed on a series of doomed projects at Pacific Bell as punishment for mocking a boss’ memo in your cartoons. Did that actually work to your advantage by providing better grist for your cartoon mill?
Well, it certainly made me angry, which is good. There’s a correlation between anger and humour. The angrier you are, the funnier you can be. You can drive things to the next level. But as far as material goes, I didn’t need any special bad projects to give me material – there was plenty.
I urge you to read the full interview - I suspect his lack of promotion may be more related to him as an individual than his race or gender.
> Well, one day, my boss called me in, and said they couldn’t promote a white male because there was too much attention on the fact that there was no diversity in senior management.
Good find. He was telling the same story 15 years ago.
Absent some other evidence, it seems the main reason to be skeptical is simply that it's not a pleasing thing to hear.
I guess - I would also guess that one not getting promoted might also be related to the lack skills at leadership, etc.
Given his thoughts on leadership:
Well, my theory is that all leadership is a form of evil, because the whole point of managing people is getting them to do stuff they don’t want to do on their own. You don’t need a manager to tell people to eat chocolate chip cookies, because they want to do that. But you do need a manager to tell them to work extra hours for the same amount of pay, and I’m not good at that. If managing were truly a case of win-win scenarios – you give me more and you get more out – I could definitely do that. But the “best” managers are not like that, [according to real-world corporate behaviour]. The “best” ones are the ones getting you to do stuff and giving you nothing in return.
I can see that he might not be promoted due to skill and ability.
Why would Scott Adams say that his boss told him it was about race?
That is the assumption of this discussion.
To me, we're beyond whether his race was a factor in promotion - he by direct provided self description is probably not a good candidate. But I'll guess beyond that.
Maybe his boss wanted to keep him in his current position but needed a scapegoat to blame as a factor beyond both their control. Keep in mind this would have been more acceptable to suggest in 1970s/1980s than 2022.
Maybe Scott Adams is making this all up or taking a partial comment and constructing his own flawed narrative around it, or, in the very least, neglecting key context to fully understand it.
Again, I don't know what you want me to say here. I never brought up the origination of Dilbert nor understand where you are driving this discussion to.
I found one quote in passing from 2005 - note this in regards his working time frame from 1979 to 1995.
and I urge you to read the full interview - I suspect his lack of promotion may be more related to him as an individual than his race or gender.https://www.itworldcanada.com/article/escape-from-platos-cub...
Given he is the only source for this claim, I dunno what you want or expect me to say.