‘I’ ON CULTURE
I went to the movie Am I Racist expecting a mockumentary. You know, actors pretending to be some wild character in order to make a point. Instead, everyone was real. Names were given to punish the guilty, or reward them, depending on your point of view. It was a fascinating, albeit one-sided, view of the anti-racism movement. It is far more powerful to see people being themselves and revealing their thoughts than to have actors pretend.
Racism is very real, and anyone who denies it is a fool. And, yes, quite often the system itself can be very unfair. There have been many groups in this country who have faced discrimination. Much of the discrimination has been racial, but ethnic groups and religious groups have faced nastiness as well. And racism should be fought. The question conservative commentator Matt Walsh raises here, however, is are the people fighting racism dealing with the real world or are they grifters?
Walsh generally plays himself through a series of interviews and meetings. Most of the people he interviewed assumed he was one of them and gave straightforward answers. The one exception was a class he enrolled in to learn about “systemic white dominance.” A group of people all paid rather a lot of money to have a black woman tell them they were racist because white people all were racist even when they didn’t know it. And all of the people there agreed. Particularly Walsh, using the name Stephen, who kept interrupting while giving more support than necessary.
As a teacher, I was forced to go to similar workshops, the difference being that the teachers sent were all tenured and were able to abuse the people giving the lessons. If they made factual errors, they were openly mocked. The pupils here seemed to want, actually need, criticism of things they had no part in. I don’t need to have someone tell me I am rotten for the sins of all. I have a wife and family for that.
Later there is a bookend class that Walsh teaches where he goes through a lot of the same things, ending with his distributing whips for self-flagellation. And some of his students seemed ready to go along with it.
We also saw him interview Robin DiAngelo, author of White Fragility, who goes through all the reasons why feeling you are not racist is proof you are. After Walsh pretends to give his black producer $20 in reparations, she hurries to give $30. After this film came out, she wiped her social media.
There are many other bits. One startling one was Walsh going to a biker bar, festooned with confederate flags, and having people there telling them they didn’t really care about race; they’d drink a beer with anyone. A similar conversation with an elderly black man led to his point that the answer was “love and respect.” The man had more wisdom than some of the people with doctorates.
There was one brief, strange restaging of the Jussie Smollett claimed attack that seemed weird and out of place, but generally the conversations were interesting.
What is the point of all of this? Much of it is nonsensical, but it makes its point. The people going to these workshops and paying out sometimes big bucks are the last people in the world who would be racists. Why would a racist even be interested? Mostly they seem well-intentioned masochists.
Anti-racists spout all sorts of philosophical notions about whites that if whites said it about blacks they would be shunned. And rightly so. Martin Luther King talked about not judging people by the color of their skins but the content of their souls. Many anti-racists do the opposite and go even further. White people, to them, are guilty for every sin, real and imagined, in the history of the country and world.
One critic wrote that half the people watching it will applaud, the others will walk out. Personally, I prefer the way of Dr. King. This is an interesting film. If you are interested in the topic, it is something to see. If not, skip it.