For rebel filmmaker Matt Walsh, it’s the most striking scene in his new movie, Am I Racist?
On one sofa sits Walsh, a hard-line conservative posing as a woke interviewer in a bid to lift the lid on the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) industry.
Across from him is Robin DiAngelo, the celebrated author of White Fragility, who made a fortune shaming white people for their inherent bigotry.
Over the next nine, toe-curling minutes, Walsh escorts DiAngelo through a series of increasingly preposterous scenarios in the name of vanquishing racism.
She doesn’t seem to realize she’s being duped.
Through a role-play, DiAngelo is made to grovel for the sin of ‘over-smiling’ at a minority co-worker in an office corridor.
Thanks to his disguise, Walsh lands an interview with Robin DiAngelo, the leading anti-racism scholar who coined the phrase ‘white fragility.’
Next, she’s confronted with Walsh’s producer, Ben, who is black, and asked to atone for systemic racism.
She obliges, without irony, saying: ‘On behalf of myself and my fellow white people, I apologize.’
Finally, Walsh, dips into his pocket and gives Ben a handful of dollars as ‘reparations.’
He then urges DiAngelo to do the same.
She’s wary at first, calling a personal payout for slavery ‘really weird.’
But, snared by the purity test, DiAngelo joins in.
She can ‘can go get some cash for sure,’ she says.
She crosses the room, takes $30 from her designer purse, and hands it to Ben, who hails a ‘small progress’ in race relations from the gesture.
It’s one of many cringe-inducing, but deeply funny, scenes in Walsh’s documentary, which frames DEI and America’s obsession with race as a scam perpetrated by grifters and zealots.
DiAngelo — perhaps the leading DEI practitioner of our times — falls for it hook, line, and sinker.
Speaking with The Mail, Walsh, 38, says it was easy to expose her as an ‘empty vessel.’
‘Her own worldview backs her into a corner,’ he says.
‘All I had to do was remind her of it.’
DiAngelo’s 2018 New York Times bestseller, White Fragility, argues that white people are insulated from racism and become defensive when confronted about it, when they just need to shut up and listen.
For his new documentary, Walsh went undercover as a rookie DEI consultant with a herringbone jacket and a man bun
Robin DiAngelo, author of the seminal text White Fragility, allegedly plagiarized multiple scholars in her doctoral thesis.
DiAngelo rose to prominence with the publication of her 2018 New York Times bestseller book White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism.
The way Walsh tells it, DiAngelo was made to play by her own rules.
The skit shows ‘what it looks like to have a white person assume this totally submissive, apologetic role,’ he says.
‘You’re not allowed to have any real opinion of your own; you have to just agree with whatever is said by someone with more victim points than you.’
He concludes: ‘It looks humiliating and degrading and very funny in a really dark way.’
The movie’s release on September 13 rounds off an ugly month for DiAngelo, who’s battling allegations that she ripped off the work of two Asian-American colleagues in her doctoral thesis.
The plagiarism claim is particularly damaging for the 67-year-old, who has spoken of the need to credit other people’s work, especially of minorities who are often overlooked.
She did not answer The Mail’s request for comment.
The rest of Walsh’s 1 hr 41 min movie regales viewers with other parodies of anti-racism work.
They see wilting liberals kick Walsh out of a ‘Grieving White Privilege’ workshop, and a fancy dinner party where rich white women pay handsomely to hear their black host declare: ‘This country is not worth saving.’
Walsh presents his DEI consultant subjects as charlatans.
The workshop host, Breeshia Wade, charged him $30,000 for the session.
DiAngelo showed up for $15,000.
Walsh also showed up at progressive supper club Race2Dinner, where white women guests pay thousands of dollars to be lectured about white supremacy.
Jodi Brown, who briefly gained prominence in 2022 by posting a video of her daughter and niece being crudely ignored by an entertainer at a parade, took $50,000 to help her ‘healing’ process, he says.
‘You’d think they’d want to talk about race and racism and not demand huge sums for it,’ Walsh says.
‘That’s not the case. They all want to be paid.’
The story is strewn with counterpoints from folksy Americans — black and white — delivering the film’s key message: it’s best to not think too much about race, and just treat everyone with kindness and respect.
The release marks a phase shift for Walsh’s media organization, The Daily Wire (DW).
The uncompromising outlet has a devoted fan-base, especially among young men, but fits awkwardly into America’s left-leaning media landscape.
Am I Racist? is the first DW product to get a mainstream, nationwide theatrical release, screening at AMC, Regal and other big chains.
Walsh says there’ve been no obstacles yet in getting his provocative film to popcorn-munching crowds.
That’s very different to his 2022 offering, What is a Woman?, which tried to debunk transgenderism.
Back then, Walsh was shunned as an ‘extremist’ and ‘transphobic’ for challenging the notion of gender identities.
It struggled to get a broad audience, until Elon Musk endorsed it on his X platform in June 2023.
The film culminates with Walsh in his alter-ego delivering a workshop that introduces white attendees to ‘healing pain.’
The ‘corporate media’ is comfortable when conservative content stays in its own platform and is only watched by ‘right-wing types,’ says Walsh.
The mainstream release of Am I Racist could yet be a problem.
It will ‘attract much more of their attention, probably in a negative way,’ he adds.
‘We’ll see what happens.’
This raises the challenging question of where Walsh goes next.
His first two movies lampooned two of liberal America’s most sacred cows — transgenderism and DEI.
The other issues he champions on The Matt Walsh Show are even more conservative yet.
The dad-of-six decries abortion, and deems that marriage is for procreation, not for gay couples.
This led to a famously awkward back-and-forth with podcaster Joe Rogan, when Walsh struggled to defend his views.
Walsh’s first two movies may be provocative, but they still hew to the political center.
Most Americans are skeptical about transgenderism, and even many liberals reject race-based hiring in corporate America, polls show.
That’s not the case for access to abortions and gay marriage, which have overwhelming public support.
So, will Walsh chance a satirical journey into the termination of pregnancies, or same-sex unions?
At the moment, it seems, the answer is no.
They ‘would seem much more difficult to turn into funny comedy and satire,’ Walsh told The Mail.
