Matt Walsh's Interview with "White Fragility" Author Exposes Flaw with Anti-Racism Activism

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On Thursday, I had the pleasure of viewing Am I Racist early for the second time, with Benyam Capel, one of the producers and stars of the film. This time, I had the opportunity to interview Capel and talk with him about the impact of the film, and how his one scene with Robin DiAngelo truly blows up the anti-racist grift.

Ahead is a spoiler, if you haven’t seen the film.

Matt Walsh went undercover, shooting a fake documentary called “Shades of Justice.” Robin DiAngelo was paid $15,000 for an interview with Walsh that lasted for two hours (I’d love to see more footage). She sensed something was odd, but Walsh said the more you commit, the more comfortable the activists become. He would never break character, no matter what.

One of their interactions was a roleplaying exercise about the evils of white people smiling too much at black people. When I first saw the film, my mouth dropped. I turned to my white friend, Jacob, and said, “I smile at people in the grocery store all of the time, and they’re trying to convince you all that it’s evil.”

I thought back to when covid started winding down and people stopped wearing their masks. I would still smile underneath mine, but now they could see and reciprocate one. I was saddened, knowing how much we had been robbed over the past year, and relieved society was getting back to normal. “I didn’t realize how much I missed seeing smiles,” I told a fellow shopper. She agreed. If I felt this way as an introvert who sees a good time as being alone with my computer all day, I wondered how much it had affected children, the elderly, and others who long for social interaction.

I was familiar with the activists Walsh interacted with, some of the books he looked at, concepts such as critical race theory, and viral “hate crime” stories, so nothing in the film had shocked and disturbed me until that moment. It was evident that these race grifters were damaging society. White Fragility played a major role in shaping the minds of guilt-ridden white people, who assured me the “collateral damage” from the BLM riots was necessary and justified, only to later apologize because they realized as white people, they “had no place to speak.” 2020 was repeated nonsense like that, over and over again. But I had not realized DiAngelo’s disease was determined to penetrate into every single crack of our society and destroy it. Policing white smiles? Really?

But the grand finale of their encounter was when Walsh had his black friend join him, so the white people could release their collective guilt with an apology. DiAngelo did that easy enough, but she was floored when Walsh paid Ben reparations. In her words, it was really weird. A debate ensued with DiAngelo explaining that reparations are systemic, while Walsh said he wasn’t waiting on a system. He was doing the work himself. She was worried Ben would be offended, but he wouldn’t turn down cash. She was still clearly uncomfortable, but she got $30 from her purse and gave it to Ben. He gave some of his pity money away, but $20 is framed on his wall.

DiAngelo released a statement about the experience on her website. Even before she realized “Shades of Justice” was a sham, she wanted the reparations portion removed from the film because she didn’t feel it was a good representation. But her clash with Walsh demonstrated why her ideology is insane.

If white people want to do the work, why wouldn’t they act as individuals? If individuals who believe in paying black people reparations shouldn’t be paying it, then who should be? The states that didn’t exist during slavery days? The states that never had slavery? The federal government? They print bills but they don’t generate revenue. They take it from citizens. So, should they take money from families who may be white but weren’t even in the US during those times? What about black taxpayers? Will they be paying reparations to themselves? Many of us have slaveowners and the enslaved in our ancestry. Perhaps the Democratic Party and their voters should pay. They’re the only major party that fought for slavery that still exists today.

DiAngelo fought to push responsibility off on the government rather than living by her own ethics. It’s like when liberal Christians say they want to vote for Democrats because they see social welfare as generous but conservative Christians note it’s your personal duty to help those in need, and voting for the government to confiscate and redistribute the wealth of others isn’t charitable.

But if you are a white person who feels guilt over things you didn’t do to black people long dead, why wouldn’t you pay a black person who claims to feel wronged? I thought the scene was especially hilarious because I have challenged woke white liberals who have expressed their white guilt to give reparations, just to see what they’d do. So far, I’ve been paid a total of $5. It’s not that I want their silly guilt money. I just want the nauseating groveling to stop.

After the interview, my youngest sister, Tina, told Ben Capel that the scene reminded her of when we traveled together to different conventions to sell my books. Just about at every convention, one or more white women will come to my table and announce that they’re visiting and trying to support all of the black tables. I smile hard and, as a capitalist, I exchange their money for my goods. I hope they’ll read and enjoy my books based on their content rather than the color of my skin.

There’s nothing wrong with respecting and celebrating diversity and inclusion, and my stories were purposely crafted to be diverse. But if someone had approached all of the white tables and said, “I’m making sure to visit and buy products from all of the white vendors,” people would be offended by that.

And I know these women never mean anything offensive by it, and I maintain a pleasurable demeanor. But there is no point in announcing why you came by my table other than to let me know you were one of the good ones. You could always just say hello and purchase the book.

But at the very least, they lived up to their ethic. Matt Walsh wanted Robin DiAngelo to do the same. She relented, but DiAngelo is still against individuals paying reparations to individual black people. If DiAngelo is racist and if I am a victim, why shouldn’t she—who has profited so much off of “educating” white people on racial justice—pay it forward?

It’s unlikely that the US will ever pay reparations. It feels like she’s perpetuating an unsolvable problem with no personal cost beyond the breath required to virtue signal. That’s largely the issue with racial grifters. It’s always the system’s fault. When people on the right ask for specific examples of racism so they can fight it or analyze data to see if disparate impacts are genuinely the result of racism or other social factors, they are scrutinized.

It's never the individual’s fault. There’s never an individual remedy. It’s always about the system. Even if black people are put in positions of power, it doesn’t matter because they still work for the system. It doesn’t matter that traits of “whiteness” apply to minorities as well, because the “system” has already influenced them. The important thing is that “whiteness” is bad, and it needs to be stopped.

One of the best parts of the film was after Matt Walsh received his DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) certification and took to the streets to evangelize. A white young man told Walsh (who was in character) that he was probably the most racist person he had ever met. The truth is, that many of the people claiming to fight racism are racists creating more racism. And why wouldn’t they? As Matt Walsh showed in his film, it’s a very profitable business.