It would have been easy for us to sidestep the controversy over “Dilbert” — the comic strip pulled from 2,000 newspapers, including ours, this week after a YouTube video went viral that showed cartoonist Scott Adams spewing inflammatory racial nonsense.

After all, the decision to pull “Dilbert,” a staple of the comics page since it began in 1989, was made by its distributor, Andrews McMeel Universal Syndication — which said the strip ran in 2,000 papers in 65 countries and 25 languages at the time of its termination.

“Andrews McMeel Universal values free speech. We promote and facilitate many different voices and perspectives,” the company said in a statement.

“But we will never support any commentary rooted in discrimination or hate.”

After that decision, it would have been especially easy for us to let the controversy pass without mention since, after all, we’re a news entity still getting our feet wet — less than a month old and already undergoing a name change.

But life doesn’t work that way, and neither does this profession.

The truth is, had the syndicator not taken the decision out of our hands, the Rogue Valley Times would have done so on our own. Just as we would have had we been a 116-year-old newspaper serving this community.

Let’s be clear here on a couple of points being pushed to the forefront by various media and social media outlets.

First, the removal of “Dilbert” from the comics page is not a freedom of speech issue.

Adams, like any citizen — regardless of race, color, sexual or gender identity, national origin, age, wealth, social status, religion or political party — has the right to speak his mind freely.

That does not mean, however, that he (or any of us) can do so without consequence.

He says his Feb. 22 remarks in reaction to a Rasmussen Report poll that showed 53% of Black respondents were comfortable with the phrase “It’s okay to be white” — one which is considered coded hate speech by the Anti-Defamation League and has ties to neo-Nazi groups and white supremacists — were “hyperbole” and taken out of context.

“If nearly half of all Blacks are not okay with white people … that’s a hate group,” Reuters reported Adams as saying in his YouTube spiel. “And I don’t want anything to do with them.”

Adams went on to advise whites to distance themselves from Blacks.

“Based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from Black people. Just get the f- — away,” Yahoo! News reported Adams as saying. “Because there’s no fixing this. This can’t be fixed. So I don’t think it makes any sense as a white citizen of America to try to help citizens anymore.”

Hyperbole? Taken out of context?

As a news organization, we hold a mirror up to the world around us for our constituency, warts and all. But we are also guardians at the gate when it comes to providing access to those whose opinions run counter to common sense and common decency.

Were we not to offer a public response to Adams’ clear racial hostility, what would that say about how firmly we hold our beliefs, our professionalism, and our duty to the community?

The other point that needs clarification here is over what has become an easy fallback position for those

who have found themselves ostracized for their words or deeds.

To paraphrase how the philosophy goes, “He was canceled by the Woke mob!”

Adams himself has tweeted numerous times that he was “canceled” by having his substantial public presence curtailed.

But such rebuttals are but a smokescreen, meant to deflect and dissuade away from the underlying root of poisonous thought or action, as if it’s those who call out moral transgressions who should be criticized.

We can see it happening to us as a country — in the rise of white nationalism, in the restrictions being placed on classroom curriculum, in the laws focused on denying rights to any group those in authority can classify as “them.”

It’s painful, and it’s ugly. A mere six years after our first Black president left office, it feels like the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction of progress as taunting, jaded provocateurs use any excuse to shred the fabric of unity.

“Dilbert” was just a comic strip, and Scott Adams was just another man venting his “truth” into the void of social media. It’s really not about him, though … it’s about us, all of us.

Which is why we chose to speak our piece, regardless of consequence. Taking a stance against those fertilizing seeds of racial distrust sure as hell beats the alternative.