Matt Walsh’s ‘Am I Racist?’

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The Daily Wire recently released its second documentary by political commentator Matt Walsh. In Mr. Walsh’s first film, What Is A Woman?, he interviewed several transgender ideologues, none of whom could define what a woman is. Their answers were so absurd they often caused unintentional humor. Mr. Walsh’s current film, Am I Racist? — now in theaters — explores Diversity, Equity and Inclusion ideology, and this time his approach is deliberately satirical. When interviewing “experts” or joining training sessions, Mr. Walsh hides his identity and tries to fit in as a fellow diversity believer.

The mockumentary approach did not work for me. I did chuckle a few times, but I also thought some scenes seemed strained and that Mr. Walsh was trying too hard to make the humor happen. The movie gives the audience an interesting, fly-on-the-wall view of what’s going on at DEI gatherings, but Mr. Walsh’s attempts to force humor are a distraction, and he sometimes misses opportunities to let DEI advocates hang themselves with their own words. Below are some examples, so here’s your warning if you want to see the movie: spoilers ahead.

Mr. Walsh’s first interview is with Kate Slater, a self-described “white anti-racist scholar and educator.” She says that whites should “reallocate their resources” to non-whites. She advises teaching white children about their racism early — “before they can talk,” she says with a laugh. She claims that “America is racist to its bones,” and she tells Mr. Walsh that it is never too late to confront one’s “racist uncle” and tell him why you think he is wrong.

Mr. Walsh next attends a workshop called “Grieving White Privilege: Anti-racist Allyship Training,” facilitated by Breeshia Wade, a black “grief expert and anti-racist instructor.” DEI seminars always seem to promise some grief for the whites who attend them. Miss Wade tells her white allies-in-training, “I will be so happy if you all feel extremely uncomfortable.”

The people who attend these workshops are already uncomfortable with their own race. When Miss Wade asks the group what they feel when they hear the words “white people,” two white men answer, “cringe.”

Mr. Walsh shows us how much facilitators in the DEI industry earn. Miss Wade received $30,000 for this one workshop. Although all of the white attendees are respectful, Miss Wade states that it is not safe for her to be black in a white space. When Mr. Walsh asks why she doesn’t feel safe, she clarifies that she doesn’t feel “mentally” safe and says they will explore that further in her presentation.

Mr. Walsh introduces himself to the group as “Steven.” He interrupts Miss Wade and other workshop participants, emotionally spouting a mix of gibberish and anti-racist talking points in an over-the-top manner that he thinks will enable him to fit in with the group. They don’t buy the act; they can tell he is insincere. He interrupts so many times that Miss Wade asks him to leave the room. While he is gone, they figure out that he is conservative commentator Matt Walsh, and when he returns, the whites object to his presence. One white woman says she “is worried for her physical safety” with him there. As a group, they throw him out, and someone even calls the police.

Mr. Walsh’s take on this is that they hate him just for being conservative, but to be fair, he is rude, patronizing, and dishonest. His antics might be entertaining to his target audience, but Miss Wade seems to take her work seriously and has an organized presentation planned. I can’t blame her for being annoyed when Mr. Walsh obnoxiously tries to dominate the conversation. There may be plenty to criticize in her workshop, but Mr. Walsh’s strategy to ambush the group and play it for laughs just makes him look like the jerk.

At no point in this documentary does Matt Walsh show that he, or the film’s production staff, made a good-faith effort to interview anyone or participate in a workshop as himself. His contention is that he would have been turned down for being conservative, but we never find out for certain because he hasn’t bothered to try.

After being thrown out, Mr. Walsh decides to work harder at going incognito. He copies the style of a transgender advocate he interviewed in What Is A Woman? by wearing a similar suit, eyeglasses, and a wig with a man bun. This disguise does not conceal his identity very well.

In a recent interview with Jordan Peterson, Mr. Walsh explained that it didn’t have to. “This wig didn’t matter. There are certain buzzwords and phrases, that if you repeat them back to these people, they will accept you as part of the tribe and they’re not going to be very skeptical. . . . All of these people live in a bubble. They’re never challenged on their beliefs. They’re never even around anyone who would disagree with them. So, I think for them, the idea that they might be interviewed by someone who fundamentally disagrees with them is really just unthinkable.”

But why would they expect to be challenged when they are approached by someone who claims to come from their own sphere of influence? Mr. Walsh does ask some challenging questions during the film, but he also spends a lot of time mocking rather than challenging.

Mr. Walsh decides to become a “DEI expert” himself. He takes a half-hour online course for $29.99, gets “certified,” and then takes to the street to preach anti-racism. Those outside the liberal bubble find his anti-racist jargon strange and off-putting.

Mr. Walsh interviews, for a fee of $1,500, Dr. Sarra Tekola, an activist and founder of Phoenix Black Lives Matter. In a video that has gone viral on YouTube, Miss Tekola can be heard screaming, “White is not a culture!” However, in the interview with Mr. Walsh, she acknowledges that white culture does exist, though it consists only of “buying things and stealing things.”

Mr. Walsh then meets Regina Jackson and Saira Rao, who sell a two-hour experience called Race2Dinner. In these $5,000 dinners, the two dine at a restaurant with up to eight white women, where they discuss such topics as “white supremacy, racism and xenophobia.” These events are for women only, so Mr. Walsh arranges to be a waiter at one.

They begin by establishing a rule straight out of Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility. In a chapter entitled “White Women’s Tears,” Mrs. DiAngelo claims that when a white woman cries over an aspect of racism, all of the attention is on her instead of the topic of fixing racism, so she asks whites to leave the room if they are moved to cry during her workshops.

Miss Jackson and Miss Rao ask their participants to describe a time when they were racist. One white woman mentions that she shushes her black husband when he is too loud. She is told this is called “tone policing.”

At $625 a head, the white women are treated to comments like, “Whiteness robs you of your brain.” The hostesses believe that “Republicans are Nazis,” but they tell the liberal women around the table, “You cannot separate yourself from the bad white people.” If the whites were hoping this event would make them non-racist, or at least better than Republicans, the hostesses provide no comfort.

Other leftwing topics, such as gun control, are woven into the conversation. They say there is a “proliferation of guns in America.” Miss Jackson says blacks know that whites want their guns to protect themselves from blacks. Miss Rao says she hates America: “It has to burn. This country is not worth saving. This country is a piece of shit.”

At that point, Matt Walsh drops dishes on the floor for comedic effect and hijacks the conversation, blubbering DEI jargon and pretending to be emotionally affected. The women become suspicious. One white woman asks, “Is he an actor?”

He does not ask why whites need guns to protect themselves from blacks, which would have been a real challenge.

The two hostesses teach that all whites are racist no matter how they act, so Mr. Walsh asks the ladies to raise their glass if they are racist. When they do, he offers a toast.

Undercover Matt Walsh: “Can I just propose a toast? Raise a glass if you’re racist.”

Liberal white women who paid money to discuss their complicity in white supremacy by just existing: *all raise their glasses*

Undercover Matt Walsh: “To racists 🥂” pic.twitter.com/VkwDggLUay

— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) September 26, 2024

In Washington, DC, Matt Walsh stands in front of the Washington Monument, asking passersby to sign a petition to change the name of the monument to the George Floyd Monument. Blacks love the idea, and many whites sign, too. All of the people who do not sign are white.

Then Mr. Walsh goes to a biker bar, with Trump signs and Confederate flags on the walls, where working-class whites tell him they are colorblind. They all say they have black friends, and a white woman says, “We all bleed the same.” Mr. Walsh next goes to a black church where the blacks make similar statements. A black immigrant from British Guyana says, “If I cut you, we bleed just the same.” People of both races claim they are not racist, yet they all self-segregate. There are no blacks in the biker bar and no whites in the black church.

For a $50,000 fee, Mr. Walsh interviews Jodi Brown, the mother of the children who were allegedly snubbed by a furry character named Rosita at a Sesame Place theme park because they were black. Mrs. Brown claimed her children’s mental health was damaged by being victims of racism, and she was part of a $25 million class action suit against the park. She doesn’t say very much, but she does admit that she never learned the identity or race of the person wearing the Rosita costume. She has no proof that the person was white. (Last week, she lost her case. A jury found that Sesame Place was not liable.)

The biggest name Mr. Walsh interviews is Robin DiAngelo, mentioned earlier, whose book White Fragility was on the New York Times Best Sellers list for a year after its publication in 2018 and shot back to #1 after George Floyd’s death in 2020. Dr. DiAngelo has a PhD in Multicultural Education and is a tenured Whiteness Studies professor. She has been providing diversity training to businesses for 20 years and has conducted DEI workshops for Netflix, Google, Amazon, and Snapchat. Since many DEI programs, such as Race2Dinner, quote her and copy her methods, you might call Dr. DiAngelo “the mother of all DEI trainers.” Her fee for this interview was $15,000.

Mr. Walsh asks about her concept of “over-smiling,” which he says resonates with him. Dr. DiAngelo wrote about “over-smiling” in a 2019 article in The Guardian:

I have heard many black Americans talk about the awkwardness of white people “over-smiling.” The act is meant to convey acceptance and approval . . . but actually conveys white racial anxiety. Over-smiling allows us to mask an anti-blackness that is foundational to our very existence as white. [. . .] Black friends have often told me that they prefer open hostility to niceness. They understand open hostility and can protect themselves as needed. But the deception of niceness adds a confusing layer that makes it difficult for people of color to decipher trustworthy allyship from disingenuous white liberalism.

He asks whether smiling at a black person could be racist. She responds affirmatively. “It’s a reminder of those thousand daily cuts; it’s a reminder of your position in relation to that other person, right? Because that person likely knows why I’m smiling at them.” She explains that when she sees a black person in a grocery store, she feels “almost an uncontrollable sense of urgency to signal to them that I’m OK, and I’m not racist, and that they’re welcome.”

Mr. Walsh asks if the right strategy wouldn’t be for the white person not to think about race and “to just think about people as human beings.”

Dr. DiAngelo counters, “You do see them as a black person. You do. I’m not going to pretend that I don’t notice there’s a black person in a grocery store. . . . We want to be honest that we do notice race.”

Mr. Walsh tells her he feels overwhelmed by the contradictory messages he gets. “I hear, ‘Forget that I’m black; don’t forget that I’m black. Notice, but don’t notice. Don’t deny that you’re racist, but also try not to be racist.” Then he acts like he’s going to cry, which is obviously fake. These theatrics did not make me laugh, and they seem like a waste of time, not to mention a waste of Dr. DiAngelo’s hefty fee. She doesn’t have to answer for these contradictions because Mr. Walsh is too busy hamming it up to ask her a question.

He suggests that she role-play with him a scenario like she does in her workshops. Mr. Walsh plays a black man telling a white co-worker that she over-smiled at him. He tells her, “It made me feel patronized. It felt racist, and I’m thinking of going to HR about it.”

Dr. DiAngelo responds, “I appreciate you’re letting me know and I imagine that is not without its risks. I certainly would not have intended to have that impact on you, but I’m very clear that I did have that impact on you. I would love to offer you a repair, if that’s something you’re ready for.”

I am curious what kind of “repair” Dr. DiAngelo has in mind, but Mr. Walsh, in character, says, “I don’t want to talk about it right now because I’m too hurt.”

She responds, “Understood. If that changes, let me know.”

Next, they role-play as the same two people the next day. Mr. Walsh says, “We passed by in the hall again, and this time you didn’t even smile at all, and it made me feel otherized, excluded, marginalized, vaporized, and now I’m really thinking about going to HR.”

Dr. DiAngelo says, “I’m a little bit confused about how best to proceed. I can’t deny that I am. Would you be willing to give me some guidance?”

Mr. Walsh says, “I don’t think it’s up to me to educate you.”

“Understood. Is there anyone you trust that I could talk to? Maybe another white person, who’s understanding of —”

“At this point, I think we should take separate hallways.”

“OK, understood.”

Though Dr. DiAngelo believes she uses language designed to make the black person “feel heard,” the way she keeps saying “understood” reminds me of an enlisted man in the military taking orders from a superior officer.

Mr. Walsh then invites Benyam Capel, a black man who is actually a co-producer of the film, to sit with them, because “It would be a powerful opportunity to speak directly to a person of color and confront our racism, and also apologize for the white supremacist systems that repress Ben.”

Dr. DiAngelo says to Mr. Capel, “On behalf of myself and my fellow white people, I apologize. It is not you; it is us. As long as I’m standing, I will do my best to challenge it.”

Mr. Walsh then offers to pay Mr. Capel reparations. He gives him all the cash in his wallet, saying, “I know that doesn’t make up for 400 years of oppression, but it’s all that I have to give.”

Dr. DiAngelo laughs. “That was really weird. Reparations is a systemic and dynamic approach.” She thinks some black people would be offended by just exchanging cash, although Mr. Capel clearly is not. She then goes to her wallet and gives Mr. Capel $30.

I actually appreciate Robin DiAngelo’s honest take that color blindness isn’t really possible, and that tension exists between blacks and whites as they try to live and work in a multiracial environment. However, she seems to think the solution is for whites to kowtow to non-whites’ demands, even if that means being kicked out of a place where they need to be, such as a hallway at work.

Finally, Matt Walsh creates his own fake DEI workshop, The Do-The-Work Workshop. He books guest appearances on TV news stations to promote it, but he gets people into the room for his workshop by placing an ad on Craigslist in Los Angeles that says, “Attend a DEI workshop and be part of a documentary film.” He manages to get about a dozen white people, most likely aspiring actors.

He begins his workshop by asking the participants to point to the person in the room who looks the most racist. Two of them walk out rather than implicate anyone. Mr. Walsh asks why no one thought to point to himself.

Then he discusses over-smiling. Mr. Capel stands in front of the room, and Mr. Walsh tells the participants to look at him in “the least racist way possible.” One man won’t look at him at all, because he doesn’t feel right looking at the black man as if he is “a specimen.”

Bringing up the concept that “white silence is violence,” Mr. Walsh says he wants to confront his “Uncle Frank.” An old man in a wheelchair is brought into the room. He never says a word and barely seems to comprehend what is going on. Mr. Walsh berates him for telling an ethnic joke about Mexicans many years ago. Then he asks the group if they have anything to say to his alleged uncle. They are all quiet at first, but when Mr. Walsh singles out a Hispanic participant, she looks at the elderly man and says, “Fuck you.” A white woman follows suit, bragging that she had cut off all of her own racist relatives.

When Mr. Walsh introduces the topic “self-flagellation” and begins handing out a box of whips, two more people leave. Amazed that there are still people left in the room, he tells them that the workshop is over. The whole scene is distasteful and creepy, and it doesn’t really make a point, because the participants were probably more interested in getting an acting credit than attending a DEI workshop. I would have preferred to see more footage from the real workshops with paying customers who were shown earlier in the film, rather than Mr. Walsh’s satirical farce.

Mr. Walsh is interviewed about his workshop on a morning show again. This time he admits that the workshop, like all DEI, is a scam. The black reporter asks a question designed to recover and redirect him back to the usual narrative, but he advises viewers, “Just go live your life.”

In the end, Mr. Walsh’s message is, “We don’t have to be held hostage by race-baiting con artists.” He says everyone should just stop obsessing about race. Whites should not allow themselves to be guilted, but he stops short of saying that whites should advocate for themselves as a group.

Given that DEI is now a systemic part of the schools and workplaces where whites spend their lives, whites often don’t have the option of ignoring race. They can even be viewed as difficult, non-team-players if they refuse to talk about it.

Am I Racist? is making a profit and is so far the highest grossing documentary film of 2024. White Americans are hungry for films that take their side, and approaching the topic as entertainment should draw in more viewers than if the film were purely informational. Indulging in the kind of snarky, I-drink-leftist-tears humor that the Daily Wire specializes in can be fun. But playing for laughs won’t help anyone who is dealing with a real issue caused by racial conflict. I see a missed opportunity to explore where whites should go from here, other than dreaming of a utopian world where race does not matter.