Am I Racist? (2024)
Directed by: Justin Folk
Premise: A documentary in which political commentator Matt Walsh tours the diversity, equity, and inclusion industry, learns the rhetoric and ideology of that industry, and then poses as a DEI instructor.
What Works: Matt Walsh is a provocateur filmmaker. His work is somewhere between Sacha Baron Cohen’s ambush comedy seen in Borat and Brüno and Michael Moore’s documentaries but from a rightwing point of view. With Am I Racist? Walsh finds a topic that is full of odious rhetoric and the documentary exposes some of the intellectual and ideological rot that has infected the DEI field. The most effective parts of Am I Racist? are the moments in which Walsh soft pedals his DEI instructor shtick and lets his subjects talk. After meeting with several people in the DEI field, Walsh visits some rural locations in the American south, first interviewing the white patrons at a biker bar and later talking to a Black immigrant business owner. Walsh poses the DEI rhetoric to these people, presupposing internalized racism on the white bar patrons in particular, and gets very rational and compassionate responses from them. Walsh also meets author Robin DiAngelo, whose book White Fragility has become a central text for DEI evangelists, and it’s a devastating interview. Not for anything Walsh says, but DiAngelo reveals herself as an intellectual poser.
What Doesn’t: As a filmmaker, Walsh’s biggest adversary is himself. He very nearly spoils the DiAngelo interview with his poorly thought-out interrogation. Early in the film Walsh sits in on an anti-racism training class and he keeps interrupting the instructor and the other students. He’s not making a counterpoint or asking relevant questions. He’s just obnoxious. This sabotages the scene. If Walsh really wanted to underline the ridiculousness of the instructor’s curriculum he would let her talk and expose herself. Walsh also attends a Race2Dinner event in which Regina Jackson and Saira Rao host a meal attended by white women and Jackson and Rao excoriate the culture and white people for their racism. Jackson and Rao’s events have been very popular but their rhetoric is unconstructive, stupid, and downright hateful. Walsh insinuates himself into the event as part of the waitstaff and he keeps drawing attention to himself by dropping dishes and other clumsiness. His efforts to ham it up distract from what ought to be the point of the scene. And this is the underlying problem of Am I Racist? Walsh and his fellow filmmakers are remarkably incurious about race in America. They never acknowledge the reality of racism or try to understand where their subjects are coming from. The facilitators might indeed be con-artists but there are also a lot of well-meaning people attending these sessions and the documentarians have no interest in them. Walsh also fancies himself a comedian but Am I Racist? is at best intermittently funny. Walsh’s act is comparable to Sacha Baron Cohen and Michael Moore but he doesn’t have their charisma or comic timing.
Bottom Line: The DEI field has injected a lot of unhelpful and poisonous rhetoric into the culture and there is an exposé to be made about it. Am I Racist? is not it. The documentary will play primarily for viewers who already share the filmmakers’ point of view but it won’t reach anyone else. To the extent that Am I Racist? succeeds, it does so in spite of Matt Walsh and his antics.
Episode: #1015 (September 29, 2024)