In my review of Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility four years ago, I said:
“When I was a boy in Ghana, I once had a massive nail pierce through my foot, and I suffered through a makeshift surgery by my mom without anesthesia. That was significantly more enjoyable than reading this book. It’s astonishingly bad.”
One of the most insufferable things anyone can do is listen to race theorists. But in Am I Racist?, Matt Walsh manages to turn insufferable “antiracism” or DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) training into an entertaining film.
Am I Racist? is The Daily Wire’s first theatrical film. It’s currently in movie theatres nationwide in America and Canada. It follows Matt Walsh’s and director Justin Folk’s popular documentary, What Is a Woman?
In the film, conservative podcaster and author Matt Walsh wears a disguise (by dressing up like the woke college professor in What Is a Woman?—except with a man bun) and goes undercover to expose the ludicrous and lucrative DEI training. He attends workshops, reads recommended books, receives DEI certification, interviews race theorists and average Americans and leads his own DEI workshop.
The film is less harrowing than its What Is a Woman? But it’s just as hilarious. The deliberately, painfully awkward scenes will probably make you cringe and laugh, especially when Walsh interviews Robin DiAngelo. That conversation, alone, is worth the price of admission. In maybe the funniest scene in the film, using her ideas against her, Matt Walsh convinces her to grab some cash from her wallet to pay reparations to his black producer.
That highlights what you should expect from Am I Racist? Matt Walsh is a conservative, deadpan version of some of Sasha Cohen Baron’s characters in this film. Meaning, it successfully exposes DEI’s ridiculous and destructive teachings. However, as the film’s trailers show, the film is primarily a comedy.
I was initially conflicted by some of the comical parts of the movie. I wondered if it risked undermining the film’s serious message about DEI. But the more I thought about it, the more I understood that one of the film’s messages is race theorists should be laughed at, instead of taken seriously.
It’s an indictment of our culture that we pay race theorists thousands of dollars to shame us, instead of shaming them for their teachings.
The film is more than what I expected. Which makes Am I Racist? a different and worthy sequel to What Is a Woman?