It may (or may not) surprise you to learn that The Daily Wire documentary Am I Racist?—the fourth-highest grossing box-office film release this weekend—has been met with radio silence from America’s cultural tastemakers. Sure, it has an A rating on CinemaScore and a 99 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, but there’s nary a review to be found from. . . any major news source.
It must be that ignoring a film so poisonous to the spiritual health of the nation is the only appropriate response from polite society.
Happily, I’ve never identified as a member of such a group. So I leaped at the chance to sit down with Matt Walsh, the civilizational menace (and Daily Wire host) behind this ingenious, disturbing, occasionally ham-fisted, and very funny documentary.
The central gag of Am I Racist? finds Walsh disguising himself as a diversity, equity, and inclusion “expert” who explores the absurd lengths to which a certain set of white people will go to atone for their inescapable racism—as well as the piles of money that can be made from their racial anxieties. It also presents a compelling case that those who sound the loudest alarm bells about “anti-racism” often seem fueled by instincts that are regressive, anti-social, and, well, racist.
The film’s triumphs are many. Its greatest coup is Walsh’s interview with famed anti-racism purveyor Robin DiAngelo, author of White Fragility. DiAngelo eagerly debases herself while describing how to meet everyday racial challenges, like walking into a supermarket and discovering a black person is there. (DiAngelo has since claimed she was deceived into participating.)
There’s also a surprisingly heartbreaking moment between a workshop participant and a sick old white man that lays bare the dehumanization behind an anti-racism movement that fixates on race, as opposed to one that attempts to transcend it. And there’s a cringe-inducing segment that finds Walsh waitering at a “Race 2 Dinner” event, for which white women pay five grand a pop to be hectored, insulted, and instructed to decolonize themselves (a procedure I’ve always thought should be done in the privacy of one’s home, but never mind).
It is not a perfect film. It falters when Walsh’s disdain for his adversaries is most palpable—for instance, in a scene (partially released online) that sees him being kicked out of a workshop where white people grieve their privilege. . . or something. The scene’s humor, and its humanity, are compromised by the fact that the participants aren’t being subtly mocked, but rather openly antagonized by Walsh, who views them as lesser mortals. Contempt and comedy are not natural bedfellows.
The same could be said, of course, of me and Matt Walsh, who has gained a healthy following with his regular diatribes against child sexualization, infanticide as birth control, and other supposed bedrocks of the Democratic Party. Walsh is not someone I ever thought I’d be all that excited to meet—here he is, for instance, relitigating gay marriage—but such is the power of art: I’ll take brains and talent over my own politics any day.
I initially wanted to profile Walsh by visiting him at his Nashville home. That plan was quashed by his security team: He has apparently had to move twice due to death threats. Walsh offered instead to meet me at a cigar lounge he frequents, so it was there that we sat down to have a smoke and a chat about his film and his life.
There are many issues that Matt Walsh and I could have argued about—and some that we actually did. Mostly I came away from my afternoon marveling at how much common cause there could be between an atheist Jew from Brooklyn and a conservative Christian in Nashville.
DEI may save this country after all.
If you like what you see, watch Ben’s dispatch from West Hollywood: “The California Progressives Trying to Cancel Affordable Housing.” You can also learn more about “Ben Meets America!”
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I went to see the movie with a friend yesterday. Some of the comedy and parody worked for me and some didn't. The rest of the audience laughed a lot. The best part was the feeling of freedom I experienced from being able to see the ridiculous DEI hucksters being publicly humiliated simply by letting them speak.
I found Ben's comments on Southerners to be annoying. The smugness and certainty of his analysis condescending.
I grew up in the late 70's and early 80's in the deep south a mile from a Civil War battlefield. I grew up in a multi-racial community. The schools I attended were 50% minorities. I also grew up surrounded by Confederate mysticism. To my teenage eyes race was not associated with symbols like the Stars and Bars. I really didn't see racism among my generation. No doubt we were naive and far away enough from the Civil Rights movement to be oblivious to what had come before
To me, it seemed pride in being Southern was based around a sense that everyone looked down on us. Do you want to sound stupid? What accent do you adopt? The Stars and Bars were an FU to 'the man', it was the Dukes of Hazzard, it was being descended from some fighting men who punched way above their weight. Maybe for older folks the flag meant something else. Maybe we were naive and ignorant. What we were not was racist. Did I know racist people? Yup. One or two were relatives. To my recollection those folks weren't the confederate flag waving types.
I have no desire to fly the Confederate Flag, but it saddens me that society thinks the childhood I, and millions of others, had must be a lie. What we say must be cover for some deep-rooted hatred. Matt had it 100% right that many Liberals do not want to understand where "deplorables" are coming from. They'd rather tell deplorables what "their kind " are and what they believe.
I didn't know what racial tension was until I moved to Chicago. To me, folks in the North are more racist than the typical Southerner. To use an Al Gore term - it's an inconvenient truth.