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September 10, 2024 - 3:00pm
This week, conservative political commentator Matt Walsh’s new film Am I Racist? is released in cinemas across the US. The film follows Walsh as he dons skinny jeans and a man bun to speak undercover with various antiracist experts.
In one memorable scene, Walsh sets up an interview with antiracist academic Robin DiAngelo, in which he pretends to be a concerned citizen interested in her ideas. First he talks her into supporting segregation: it would be fair for her and a black colleague to take separate hallways, she concedes, after that colleague complained that she hurt him both by smiling too much at him and smiling too little.
Then Walsh, who is white, brings in a co-producer of the film, Benyam Capel, who is black, and hands him a few dollars from his wallet as “reparations”. Evincing a normal human reaction, DiAngelo smiles uncomfortably and suggests: “That was really weird.”
But what makes it weird? Walsh presses her. It’s a form of reparations, and if the US isn’t offering comprehensive reparations to the black population, white people must all do their part now. She can’t argue with his logic because doing so would expose the failures in her own thinking, which patronises and victimises black people while pretending to elevate them. For instance, in White Fragility DiAngelo — with no sense of irony — criticises Black History Month for taking “whites out of the equation,” arguing that it should focus more on racism.
She then walks to her purse for $30, saying: “I’m definitely going to process that.”
DiAngelo is no stranger to cognitive dissonance. As author and academic John McWhorter points out, her “depiction of white psychology shape-shifts according to what her dogma requires”, meaning she argues both that “white people do not see themselves in racial terms” and also that, as she writes, “white solidarity requires both silence about anything that exposes the advantages of the white population and tacit agreement to remain racially united in the protection of white supremacy.”
Am I Racist? arrives at a perfect time. As the dust settles from the racially charged summer of 2020, when DiAngelo’s book skyrocketed in popularity, it finally seems socially acceptable to question whether she and other supposed experts on race relations are credible messengers. Last year, the Boston Globe reported that after How to Be an Antiracist author Ibram X. Kendi drew tens of millions of donor dollars for an antiracist research centre, it had massively downsized with little to show for its three years of existence.
Even the New York Times recently ventured to report on the allegations that DiAngelo plagiarised in her doctoral thesis, as well as publishing an essay critical of the “diversity, equity, and inclusion” trend on college campuses.
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SubscribeReading this article put me in mind of the film American Fiction which I watched a while ago and enjoyed very much.
Not sure if I can compare it to Am I Racist? – mainly because I haven’t watched the latter yet, but also because once you go down these kind of intellectual rabbit holes, logic bends and it gets very Alice in Wonderland very quickly. And I guess that’s why these films are getting made.
If it’s even half as good as Matt Walsh’s ‘What is a woman’ we are in for a treat.
Laughter and parody are the most powerful weapons against fanatics, particularly progressive ones.
The Anti-Racist movement is not “drawing to a close.” Like all revolutionary socialist movements, its just rebranding and modifying the message. The Left achieves its gains and then backs off certain messages that are no longer landing. It will then claim that tying the Left or Democrats to an “abandoned movement” is a “divisive culture war” issue and then use the same strategy with a new Proletariat/Oppressed group.
The players change but the method remains the same.
I remember a while back there was an idea floated that any kind of sexual encounter was basically rape while the patriarchy was in place. Most people even probably on the far left thought maybe it was going too far so was fairly rapidly abandoned. It is almost like they throw out certain ideas and see what sticks. The proverbial throwing crap at a wall.
Right. But that line has re-surfaced occasionally since the 1980s. Is it sticking? I can’t really tell.
In the US, it went away with Clinton/Lewinsky. Maintaining that line conflicted with lefty support for the Democratic Party.
How would you know? You are a White Incell? You ain’t getting none…. white patriarchy or not.
The Left is all over the place on race :-
A) British isn’t a race.
B) ‘Britain for the British’ is racist.
But Kamala having segregated Zoom rallies is a whole new take on the subject.
Genuine question here-
BIPOC stands for Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour
Surely White people in the UK are included in that group by virtue of the fact that they are indeed Indigenous, no?
So whilst I can see how the term might reasonably exclude White people in America, in most European countries the term BIPOC is rendered meaningless in the context in which it is used.
You make an excellent point.
Imported American leftist babble means the opposite of what was intended when applied in Europe.
I remember someone pointing this out a while back but the problem is here is that you are asking for logical consistency from these people. Come on now.
Yes, it seems to becoming quite common to repeat the mantra that ‘Britain was built by immigrants’. There’s also an effort to deny that Britain has an indigenous population.
The way this discourse works is to first to patronisingly point out that every country in the world outside Africa (and many within it) were built by immigrants. The next step, an equivocation on the term ‘immigrants’, is often performed implicitly (and ideally even unconsciously). “From the incontrovertibility of the one to lend credence to the other” as Sam Beckett so memorably put it.
“The first and simplest stage in the discipline, which can be taught even to young children, is called, in Newspeak, crimestop. Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity. But stupidity is not enough. On the contrary, orthodoxy in the full sense demands a control over one’s own mental processes as complete as that of a contortionist over his body.”
There is no point to expect logical consistency from Neo-Marxists.
They just want destruction of the West.
Doing it via promoting pure Marxism failed because only morons like Jeremy Corbyn believe in it now.
So they tried DEI way.
Talking to young white people in London shows that their approach works.
You seem to have overlooked the indigenous immigrants that there are in Britain and the United States.
If an indigenous Mexican moves to Barnsley, he is still considered to be indigenous.
https://www.hcn.org/articles/tribal-affairs-indigenous-immigrants-face-unique-challenges-at-the-border/
I would say that, if he or anyone else moved to Barnsley, he should be considered seriously deranged (unless they moved there from Doncaster and hence should be considered social climbers.)
Footnote – I have close relatives from both locations and am basing my post on their comments comparing both locations.
Best laugh of the day so far (and I’m from Hull, me)! Thanks for that.
Thanks for your post.
I will add this places to my list of “sadly missed by Luftwaffe” locations.
Derby is my nr1
I believe the old part of the town centre is quite nice.
Contradictory though it sounds, I actually could be described as an indigenous immigrant: I was born in Canada, migrated to the UK as a child with my family, but have extensive British ancestry.
Does that mean I have to give you ten quid or something? This is all so confusing.
!!!! 🙂 :):)!!!!
Matt Walsh released a video that may help answer your question. It’s about the US, but it does speak of indigenous people. At least it may give you a chuckle.
https://youtu.be/t29au-wFyO0?si=8AcVqlGR3a8NAhAI
The use of the term cited in the article was during the “White Women for Kamala” event, and thus presumably referred specifically to the US.
I’ve never seen the term applied to the British context, but will believe you if you tell me that it has been. If so, perhaps it refers to the woad-wearing community?
The Faery
Ah, but didn’t you know that Black people are just as indigenous to the UK as Whites (cf Bridgerton, etc)? And considering Cheddar Man (https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42939192), probably even more indigenous, so to speak./s
I think that Cheddar Man and the rest of his hunter-gatherer people disappeared and were replaced by successive waves of other peoples. Firstly brown-eyed, pale-skinned farmers from the Middle-East, who were then replaced by pastoralists from the Steppes, who, in turn were replaced/absorbed by Germanic peoples (not the Anglo-Saxons who arrived much later). As for Bridgerton? The less said the better.
Yes. Maybe its time we saw people with non English heritage in towns like Bradford and Leicester making ritual “land acknowledgments” to the historical custodians of the land?
Much simpler to use the acronym EEWP.
Everyone Except White People is far more accurate, meaningful and honest than the scrambled alphabetical contortions we attempt, when we all know we mean ‘but not Whitey’
Maybe add the suffix /J, as in EEWP/J
I refer to people who aren’t White as “non-White”, and do so precisely in order to offend the woke scum.
The proper way to refer to the melanin-deficient is “colorless.”
But we are not colorless! We are pale to medium beige.
Oh dear.
You clearly need diversity training.
You are not supposed to point out how idiotic DEI ideas are.
Just believe and pay the money to BLM grifters.
No white British are not indigenous, as explained by Bonnie Greer, unchallenged, to Nick Griffin on BBC Question Time all those years ago. British whites have no culture, only what has been appropriated from others during colonial transgressions. We count for zero in the rankings of intersectionality. Get used to it and address your ‘fragility’ whitey.
You are Neanderthal Parasites and Druid Cannibals. Thank God for Black American music and culture which you hijacked in the 1960’s with the Beatles and Stones and your phony British invasion. You would be culturally irrelevant if you did NOT steal the Black man’s culture and art forms. Rum and Sodomy can only get you so far in life old chap. Cheerio!!
Exactly: simply change “BIPOC” into “WIPOC”!
Walsh is becoming one of my favorite documentary filmmakers, expert in skewering woke extremism not by fiery opposition, but by ostensibly benign probing that quickly exposes its essential incoherence and illogic. As others have noted “What is a Woman?” is equally effective and entertaining in dismantling the absurdities of gender ideology.
Yeah “White Boy lunacy” is what the world needs more off. Jeffrey Dahmer is now in the Catering business? Who do you think is on the Menu Snowflake? I can see why you are happy. It ain’t you on the Caucazoid menu…… apparently Druid Dahmer Don’t like White meat.
In relation to critical race theory and any-racism ‘cognitive dissonance’ is a polite way of saying gobbledegook.
The “social justice” movement of the late last century was already a profitable grift, for black people like the Rev. Jackson, or Al “Tawana” Sharpton. Why would whites want to stay out of the business?
LOL is there a bigger parasite Grifter on God’s Green Earth than the Caucazoid Neanderthal mutant from the swamps of Europe? Get REAL old chap. Cheerio!
I didn’t know he was working on another film! I am sure it is going to be a treat.
I don’t agree with all his views but Matt Walsh’s two movies are excellent in concept and, by the sound of it, in execution. The trailer is funny so I’ll have to check it out.
Just letting the modern racists, the so-called “antiracists” talk plainly is the best cure for the damage they inflict. Any humor is strictly that of their own making.
Wasn’t aware of Matt Walsh, but from the trailer this looks like a must watch. Shows these “anti-racist” clowns up for exactly what they are.
His film “What is a woman?” is very good and very disturbing.
“Is refusing to correct non-white people infantilizing, or an example of rejecting white dominance? Is paying a random black man a few dollars insulting, or a small step in the right direction?” If people have to ask themselves those questions, they are missing the point and are part of the problem. But for their benefit, the answers are: Yes, No, Yes, and No.
It’s much worse than grift. It’s a genocidal cult that wants to abolish ‘whiteness’, in other words white people. It attracts the severly mentally ill, like DiAngelo. But mostly it attracts non-whites who hate white people.
Not quite. Whiteness is an immutable characteristic, so it has no moral force for good or evil. Anti racism is simply an expression of extreme resentment that Judeo Christian ethics have created far more blessed and prosperous nations than any other religion. Since Christianity took root in northern Europe historically, pale north Europeans benefitted from the huge economic, social and civil benefits of a collaborative society based on the hope found in the belief in the Christian God. That’s why white people have tended to be more prosperous, because their societies are based on true equality undergirded by English common law. That reality inflames Marxists who don’t want Christianity to be the winner in the battle of philosophies, so they invented antiracism.
Christianity first took root in Ethiopia in the fourth century, where it is still the religion of two thirds of the population. At the same time it took root in the Mediterranean littoral, including Asia Minor and in what we now call the Middle East. It didn’t take root in northern Europe until much later, notably in the sixth century among the Franks (and not till the ninth among the Saxons). Christianisation therefore cannot be the explanation for the subsequent prosperity of this region: it is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for it. The states of the countries of north-west Europe became prosperous and powerful on the world stage long after their adoption of Christianity.
Also, the English common law has certainly played an important role in social and economic developments in the English-speaking world, but conflating the latter with “white people” generally is obviously wrong.
LOL…you must have public hair growing in your palms from all that wacking old chap. The Black man created Judaism and Christianity Snowflake. WHITE ignorance is the biggest threat to man kind. By the way did you not get Memo from the Whitest Leader in the World Vladimir Putin in regards to Christianity? Go see Black Maddona in Moscow and Warsaw Poland mate. A mind is a terrible to thing to waste Homie. White Lies AND propaganda will be challenged in this new information age. You no longer control global media.
Anti-racism is “revenge racism” which sanctions discrimination against whites to “get back at them”.
100% correct. The woke scum are racist antisemitic misogynist apologists for sadistic paedophilia.
Anti-racism isn’t about racism, just like ‘pro-trans’ has little or nothing to do with being nice to trans people. What they really are are psychopathic tools of popular immiseration, trotted out by elites to make the poors miserable. That causes the poors to die and be ostracized, keeping what Peter Turchin calls the Wealth Pump — the device where, in hard times, money flows from the poor to the rich — running just fine.
It’s not all about money — but part of it certainly is. What it really IS about is Turchin’s Elite Overproduction thesis. Kids of the elites have to have something to do to justify their status-driven place in society. And it just so happens that the complicated coding in all this hate allows them to justify their material position easily.
And the misery is not just a bug — it’s a feature. Emergent from The Matrix.
To me parts of the West, in particular Americans, are reminiscent of an adult going into a hysterical rage harming themselves and their children after being told an uncomfortable fact hoping that by making a bigger scene others will forget about why the situation originally started. Yes, a significant part of the foundations of America (including parts of its capitol building) were built with slave labour, there was large scale slave trade across the Atlantic (most importantly) justified using racial classifications, there was continued ethnic cleansing if not genocide of native Americans over a long period of time, there was a persisting system of racist apartheid well into the 50s. None of these things are going to change because America is throwing a hissy fit about it now. I’d like to separate opposition to the Leftist delusions from the sins of the past – which are separate concerns.
Be sure to see John Woods (The Daily Show) take on the Safety Box antiracism subscription program, https://youtu.be/HrFo0k0YmEs?si=BzsqEf3anXRoSpFP
I am a white man with three black children. I would get up in the morning and feed them breakfast, change their diapers, and wipe away their tears. Then I drove to the secular university where I taught and was told that since I was a conservative I was a racist. This from people who had not had a meaningful conversation with a black person in years. Mark me up as one of those who is a bit suspicious of the anti-racism racket.
RMT
Would be interested in any discussion about racism and slavery in Africa. If anything like that ever happened.
Plus it’s a funny movie. Lots of laughs, the best kind of take down