"Am I Racist?" My Review
Spoiler Alert--It's "Chef's Kiss" Good
I recently rewatched Elia Kazan’s brilliant, darkly satirical A Face in the Crowd, starring Andy Griffith as malignant narcissist “Lonesome Roads,” who rises from shiftless drifter to accidental radio personality, to megalomaniacal cult hero. His massive American audience buys into his folksy, Will Rogers style persona, and with his growing influence on the public and his ability to sell products, this grifter soon finds himself being brought in as a high level political strategist. The more power he’s given, the more amoral he grows, until his lover, Marcia (Patricia Neal), the Dr. Frankenstein who discovered him and brought him to fame, realizes just how dangerous he really is. At the end of a live broadcast, unbeknownst to Roads, she flips on a microphone, catching him in a rant for all the world to hear, in which he mocks the stupidity and gullibility of his followers. Exposed for the monster he is, Roads loses everything. The truth will out, Kazan is telling us, as his biting satire of propaganda, commercialism and the mass delusion of American culture draws to its queasy conclusion.
With his latest film, the satirical “documentary” Am I Racist?, Matt Walsh infiltrates the inner sanctums of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion industrial complex, exposing the peddlers of the snake oil that passes for today’s “anti-racism,” simply by allowing them to expose themselves—and it is glorious. It’s important to understand that the gurus of the anti-racist movement have contrived to shield themselves from criticism by refusing to debate in any forum, or face any challenge of their ideas from journalists they haven’t vetted; yet Walsh, director Justin Folk, and their producers concocted a fake documentary on anti-racism entitled Shades of Justice, and somehow managed to convince the DEI leaders who appear to sign a release, accept a fee for their participation, and join Walsh on camera. The biggest coup is the landing of anti-racist “Carrie Nation,” Robin Diangelo, who murmurs bemusedly, after being introduced to the disguised Matt Walsh: “You have to be careful…!” The portion of Am I Racist? that features Diangelo is worth the price of admission. Watching her fumble around as Walsh calmly questions her, attempting to make her gibberish concepts make some sort of sense, looking more and more like an alarmed labradoodle as it dawns on her that she might be getting punked—oh, it’s good stuff. In a statement on her website titled, “About That Film…” Diangelo writes about having been duped:
After reviewing the sequence of events and discussing it with colleagues, I realized that they had lied about their agenda and I had been played…It is not titled Shades of Justice nor is it meant to support the anti-racist cause. It is a Borat-style mockumentary titled Am I Racist? and designed to humiliate and discredit anti-racist educators and activists.
Yep! That’s right, Robin. You got it. Except the “mockumentary” doesn’t humiliate and discredit you—you do that very effectively all by yourself. They just caught it on film…and paid you $15,000 for your pains. At the end of her statement she declares: “They will not prevail in their efforts to stop the work for racial justice.” Yeah, this is exactly what these grifters say when their sadistic, insipid methods are exposed. Another DEI operative, Kike Ojo-Thompson, said something similar after her persecution of educator Richard Bilkszto had led to his tragic suicide. As delicious as Walsh’s exposé is here, we can’t forget that there is often a heavy human cost to this grift, which has no intention of, or interest in eradicating racism.
I generally find Matt Walsh to be as douchy as his cohorts at The Daily Wire, Michael Knowles and Ben Shapiro, three poncy white dudes smoking cigars, promoting traditional values, and shilling for Trump. Walsh has nevertheless hit upon a brilliant idea. Not only that, with his stoic, underplayed facetiousness and surprisingly good timing, Walsh is pretty darn funny as a sort of self-styled right wing Borat, insinuating a thinly-disguised, fictitious version of himself into the real world of anti-racist “educators” and activists. He’s following in the footsteps of folks like comedian Andrew Doyle, whose fake alter-ego Titania McGrath, the ultimate white girl social justice warrior, pulled the wool over the eyes of her half million Twitter followers. Walsh is also taking a page from the Grievance Studies Affair, in which the trio of Peter Boghossian, Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsey wrote twenty fake scholarly papers, using popular woke concepts and lingo to argue for preposterous conclusions—only to have seven of them accepted for publication, thus exposing the corruption and ideological capture of academia. Walsh, like Doyle and the Grievance Studies pranksters, ‘talks the talk’ to these activist ideologues, luring them into ‘walking the walk’—right into his trap.
There is something of a loose narrative to Am I Racist?. Walsh starts his “anti-racist journey” in his favorite diner, where he’s afraid to order a black coffee from his black waitress. In a quest to answer the titular question, he decides to “do the work” of pursuing an anti-racist education. He takes an online DEI certification course (having taken one myself, on my union’s website, I know what these rancid little power point debacles are like) and receives his DEI certification card (which he hilariously shows to random people throughout the film as if it means something).
Walsh attends an “anti-racist grief group” (whatever that is) led by a dour woman of color named Breesia Wade, whose goal is to make her white attendees “feel extremely uncomfortable.” Ms. Wade tells the circle that she puts herself, the only black person present, at risk by being in this room full of white people, stating that she does it out of “necessity.” As she made $30,000 for that one workshop, her “needs” must be immense. Anyway, it’s in this group that Matt makes his first mistake—he looks like Matt Walsh, and can’t seem to remember his fake name, “Steven.” After trolling the group mercilessly by going off on hilarious rambling tangents, he exits to the “crying room,” leaving the group participants to look him up on social media, thus unmasking the miscreant Walsh. This leads to his expulsion from the workshop and Ms. Wade going so far as to call the cops on him and his crew. So much for defund the police.
Having learned his lesson, Walsh dons an absurd “soy boy” disguise complete with skinny jeans, electric scooter and man bun wig in order to blend in better in the liberal arena, and ventures on with his journey, interviewing Kate Slater, a ginger-haired, freckled, nose-pierced anti-racist educator who believes that America is “racist to its bones.” Slater expresses her frustration that her four year-old daughter only identifies with white Disney princesses, prompting Walsh to concoct his own dilemma with his three year old girl, who he says wants to be Moana for Halloween—but what about cultural appropriation? As with most things anti-racist, you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t, thus underscoring the core principle: white people are born racist, will always be racist, can never not be racist, and must commit to doing “the work” which will never result in the eradication of racism—but will sure give Ms. Slater and her ilk plenty of income as “educators.” I pity her four year old. We’re constantly hearing from black activists that they want their kids to “see themselves” in the characters of films and television—but I guess it’s terrible for a little white girl to want to be Sleeping Beauty. Ms. Slater had better be saving up for her daughter’s many years of therapy to come.
As Matt’s “journey” progresses, we see him in a one on one session with a black “educator” who pushes back on his comment that Martin Luther King, Jr. advocated for a color blind society with, “Well, Martin Luther King said a lot of stuff.” I’m pretty sure, if this woman’s grandmother had been in the room, she’d have smacked her mouth. Walsh takes his laminated DEI certification card to a redneck biker bar, and to a working class black neighborhood where, perhaps unsurprisingly, his inquiries elicit the most down-to-earth and sensible views expressed in the film. Ordinary, decent people have no knowledge of, nor interest in, these divisive ideologies; they just want to live and work in harmony with their coworkers and neighbors, regardless of color.
The crescendo of the movie comes with Walsh’s infiltration of one of the Race To Dinner events (I covered these in a recent essay), posing as an hilariously loquacious and clumsy cater waiter. We get to witness the cringe of a table full of miserable white ladies, who paid $5000 a plate for the privilege, listening to the perpetually bellicose Saira Rao saying things like: “Republicans are Nazis. This country is not worth saving. This country is a piece of shit.” Well, it takes one to know one, Ms. Rao. Walsh manages to take a seat at the table (to which no men are invited) and gets everyone to drink a toast: “Raise a glass if you’re racist!” They all do, including co-hostess Regina Jackson, who catches herself, lowering her champagne flute with the exclamation, “Oh wait, I’m not racist!” Oh come now, Ms. Jackson. We see you.
The film covers a lot of ground—perhaps too much ground. We’re treated to an elaborate reenactment of the Jussie Smollett hate crime hoax, which I still don’t get the point of; we get to watch Walsh run his own anti-racist workshop in which he enlists his bigoted “Uncle Frank” in a stunt that is as cringeworthy as it is unexpectedly powerful—I won’t spoil it for you. Walsh has a natural gift for improv, and he’s able to adopt a truly believable, if drily facetious, sincerity that is something to behold. As George Burns said, “The secret to success is sincerity—if you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” Walsh has it down pat.
It’s telling that since the release of Am I Racist? Kate Slater, Saira Rao and Robin Diangelo have all deleted their X accounts. Walsh struck a nerve, and like all bullies, these ladies are cowards—unable to deal with their humiliation and the inevitable ridicule and abuse, they run away. Like all social justice peddlers, they see themselves as put upon victims, who were duped by that terrible right wing Nazi Matt Walsh into…simply being themselves. Boo-fucking-hoo, ladies.
Amongst the commentators and podcasters I follow, the same question is often asked: have we reached “peak Woke?” After seeing Matt Walsh’s film, I suspect that we may have. Why? Because people are starting to call out, and lampoon, the excesses of this divisive movement, and, unlike a couple of years ago, they’re getting away with it. People are ready to laugh at this rancid, neo-racist bilge, and even if they’re afraid to go to the cinema to see Am I Racist? (I saw the film on its opening weekend in a NYC cineplex with about 20 others), I predict that the streaming numbers will be off the charts. The tide is turning, and crazy as it may seem, we are seeing the emergence of a legit, quite funny comedy coming from the right—something I never thought I’d see. We on the left have always been able to boast that we owned comedy; that we’ve had the upper hand when it comes to satire, especially with the Trump era providing endless material and a string of preposterous right-wing public figures to poke fun at. Since the advent of social justice activism, and its entrenchment in every corner of mainstream media and entertainment, one thing is undoubtedly clear: the left has lost its sense of humor—leaving the door wide open for comedy renegades like Matt Walsh and his merry band of satirists to come in and make hay.
Sadly, the folks who need to see this very smart, very funny film won’t see it, because of the taint of The Daily Wire and its conservative, right wing ethos. Amongst most left leaners there’s a pat refusal to entertain any point of view outside of their liberal bubble. But I’m not talking about the left wing activist class, who have drunk the anti-racist Kool-Aid and are unreachable. I’m talking about my lovely liberal friends who parrot anti-racist ideas and rhetoric, yet know nothing about the race hustlers like Robin Diangelo who concocted those ideas (although recent allegations point to her having plagiarized them). They haven’t read White Fragility, and yet will most likely at some point—as I did—have to deal with its divisive contents on the job, in DEI trainings and required “sensitivity” workshops. Sadly, they’ll exist in this semi-informed twilight until an activist coworker comes at them with accusations of microaggressions and white privilege. As someone who has gotten this shit in the face, I can tell you—it changes you. My experience of this zero-sum game of revenge, psychobabble and futility two years ago led to my creating The Cornfield here on Substack, and embarking on my own “personal journey,” educating myself on the tactics of these destructive forces, which, thanks to Matt Walsh and his collaborators, feel a little less threatening right now—thanks to the power of laughter.
Unlike Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, and John Oliver who cannot bear to poke fun at the foibles of the left, Ricky Gervais, Bill Maher and Dave Chappelle are equal opportunity comedians. That’s why they are consistently funny and the others are not.
james, have you seen his other film "what is a woman?" i haven't seen this new one yet but from your description, he has found his style. in "woman" he just let these idiots talk and they all hung themselves. he asked them deadpan earnest questions which they "answered" with their large meaningless vocabularies of canned woke phrases. they were doctors, college professors and politicians and they all revealed in their own words the insincere fraudulence at their core.
finally, he visited a tribe of africans who know exactly what a woman is, what a man is and how they are different.