The Daily Wire Recently has been experimenting with entertainment, producing films, children's shows, and adult animated series that are available on their subscription service. The most successful of these ventures seem to be the documentaries produced by Matt Walsh – at least, these are the ones that garner the most attention. The first was What is a woman?An investigation of the transgender phenomenon that has risen to prominence in the last few years. Now, a new documentary by Walsh is in theaters: Am I a racist? This time, he goes undercover (via a fake hipster wig) to explore the ins, outs and other facets of the anti-racism movement. And the result is an entertaining, very funny, mostly insightful film that could have been even more enlightening had Walsh shown a little restraint.
In Am I a racist?Matt Walsh goes undercover to learn from activists who conduct seminars, workshops, and one-on-one interviews targeted mostly at white people, with the aim of helping them “do the work” (an often repeated phrase) so they can recognize their own racism and try to overcome it — while realizing it will never go away. Walsh’s dive into this cottage industry shows the flood of literature written on the subject, the willingness of people outside the industry, like news readers and bookstore owners, to promote it or give it good press (or just to virtue signal about how much they support it), and the ordinary people who buy into it. And I mean really “buy”; Am I a racist? It is that the anti-racism business is a scam, with disingenuous frauds exploiting white guilt or good intentions to make money doing nothing. Every encounter with these frauds comes with a graphic telling the audience how much money was charged for the program, and it is obscene; one even made $15,000 for just one interview. And in return, they get empty talk at best and accusations of non-existent racism at worst.
Walsh has featured in various encounters Am I a racist? are funny, which can sometimes hinder the film's objectives. Walsh inserts himself into every single one of these scenes, and he makes jokes about the scenario each time, which aren't exactly subtle. It's funny, and the documentary is very entertaining, but I wish he would have restrained himself a few times and let some of these situations play out on their own. The best parts are not the jabs Walsh takes at these hypocrites, but the moments when they reveal themselves to anyone who has a modicum of common sense and is paying attention. That's its real strength Am I a racist?: Giving thugs a chance to show a wider audience the garbage they inflict on the thugs who buy tickets to these events. For example, there's a scene at a dinner for white women hosted by Regina Jackson and Saira Rao, who are authors of a book White women: everything you know about your racism and how to make it better (the beach read of the decade), and the ridiculousness of her speeches to the women at the table to keep quiet is astonishing—especially when Rao says she “used to be white.” Moments like these are the best parts of this book. Am I a racist? Because they demonstrate how pointless the whole scam is, and they come from the very people trying to push it forward.
However, Walsh is often laughable. In the same scene with Regina Jackson and Saira Rao, Walsh, posing as a caterer, begins doing silly things with food and drinks, which are simply distractions, and eventually he takes over the dinner, which is a mocking example of people obsessing about race. Why interrupt such a goldmine of information and exposure? If he had let Jackson and Rao keep talking, they could have said even more, to highlight how ridiculous their act is. The worst example of this comes when Walsh attends a seminar of sorts on racism. He dresses normally for it, but he gives the woman conducting the seminar a false name; then, he deliberately makes himself look awkward, exaggerating his answers to questions and interrupting other people. It doesn't take long for the group to figure out what he's doing and kick him out. Sure, it's funny, and these people are so ridiculous that it's hard to avoid making fun of them. But I wanted to see the seminar as it would have been if Walsh wasn't there, so we could have heard some of the funny things the woman said to the group. It's fine for Walsh to be part of the group, but she should have remained invisible instead of being laughed at.
There are times when humor Am I a racist? It works, though. Their first conversation at the Regina Jackson and Saira Rao dinner is pretty funny, especially because they put it in a way that makes the hosts laugh in agreement with them. (Presumably, they're so used to dealing with idiots who buy their song and dance that they can't tell they're being made fun of until it's very obvious.) If they had left it there, it would have been perfect. And speaking of perfect, Walsh has two encounters later in the film that work largely because of his humor, especially one particular move he uses both times that I won't mention because it's so good. One is an interview with Robin DiAngelo, author of White fragility: why it's so hard for people to talk about racismJoe is sort of the godfather (for lack of a more inclusive term) of the Race Hustle movement; the way he makes this PhD fool is extremely satisfying. Also, there are some great moments in the whole novel Am I a racist? Where Walsh, posing as a conscious DEI expert, talks to ordinary people and finds the most comfortable, racially harmonious people in the film. How shocking; ordinary people are ordinary.
Am I a racist? Definitely worth your time; it's an entertaining documentary that exposes a pretty nasty scam being perpetrated on Americans by modern-day thugs. But I wish it had left the humor in a little more and let Matt Walsh's encounters happen naturally instead of turning them into comedy.
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