Last night I finally went to see Matt Walsh‘s Am I Racist?

Walsh’s low-key manner, gravelly-gurgly voice and logical trains of thought make for an engaging package. And the film certainly comes to the right conclusions, of course — since ’19 or thereabouts and certainly since the George Floyd summer of 2020 many of us (wealthy liberal women in particular) have been prodded and besieged by maniacal race-hustlers.

But the amiable Walsh struck me as being a little bit afraid of sounding too snippy and smart-ass.  I could have punched up Matt’s narration if asked.  I got a distinct feeling that he didn’t want to let his inner white guy off the leash.

Am I Racist?, in short, plays it a little too gently. It seems to skirt and soft-pedal — it’s a little too low-key.  Too much respectful listening and not enough eye-rolling.  

Matt’s strategy is to let the race-hustlers hang themselves, which mostly succeeds as far as it goes. But I wanted more of a Ricky Gervais or an Adam Carolla or a Bill Maher-like attitude.  Why couldn’t Matt just say what the woke cultists seem to believe, which is that POCs are generally angelic figures with halos and white males (especially the older ones) are more or less demonic Trumpies who need to be shunted aside?

Friendo responds: “But that’s the whole point. It was the same with What is a Woman?. Walsh made it in such a way as people could not write it off as mocking or vicious. People expected it to be a Bill Maher thing but it wasn’t. That was the brilliance of it.”