Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1063 ｜ Everyone Is Racist ｜ Guest： Matt Walsh

00:00:00.960 Matt Walsh is the host of Daily Wire's Matt Walsh Show. He is an author. He is a documentary

00:00:06.700 maker. And you might not know this, but he is also a DEI anti-racist expert. And he is going

00:00:13.240 to tell us today how we can escape the oppression of whiteness and systemic racism in this country

00:00:21.180 through what he learned in his new documentary, Am I Racist? This episode is brought to you by

00:00:27.660 our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to GoodRanchers.com. Use code Allie at checkout. That's

00:00:31.260 GoodRanchers.com. Code Allie.

00:00:43.260 Matt, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. So you went on quite a journey,

00:00:49.500 a hair journey, anti-racist journey. There were a lot of journeys happening at once in this

00:00:54.560 documentary. And as a white woman myself, I learned a lot about race and racism that I didn't know. So

00:01:04.100 I was wondering if you could help us, or maybe primarily white audience, I think,

00:01:08.500 understand a little bit. I guess the first basic question is like,

00:01:13.460 what is racism and how do we diagnose ourselves with it?

00:01:19.540 Well, I mean, the first thing you have to understand is that

00:01:24.560 there's no solid definition for racism. Because if there's a solid definition for it,

00:01:33.680 then that means it's possible to not be it. Because you could look at the definition and say,

00:01:40.500 well, that's not me. I'm not that. But the most important thing that you learn,

00:01:45.180 that I learned on my journey of self-discovery, is that as a white man myself,

00:01:51.620 I'm racist no matter what. There's no way to escape it. And so I guess the definition of racism is

00:01:59.380 whatever you happen as a white person, whatever you happen to be thinking or feeling at this very

00:02:06.360 moment in time, that is what racism is. And if you think or feel something totally different

00:02:12.840 in the next moment, then that is also racism. Because keep something in mind, and Robin DiAngelo,

00:02:18.540 the great Robin DiAngelo, said this to me in the film, that there's no way to be not racist.

00:02:26.460 Racism is on a spectrum. We love the spectrums, folks. And so you could be less racist,

00:02:33.080 you could be more racist in any given moment, but you can never be not racist. And the first step

00:02:40.960 in being not racist is to realize that you can never be not racist.

00:02:44.160 Right. If that makes sense.

00:02:46.380 Well, I remember you presented her with like, I don't know, maybe you could call it the hallway

00:02:50.940 quandary or the hallway problem, as you were speaking to the great Robin DiAngelo. And you

00:02:57.040 said, okay, if a black person says that smiling at them is racist one day, but the next day says that

00:03:05.120 you didn't smile enough, both of those could be considered equally racist. And we really have no

00:03:11.480 defense to that. Right. Am I understanding that right? Like that we simply have to take on those

00:03:16.600 accusations and say, yes, it doesn't matter what my intent was. That was racist, that I didn't smile

00:03:23.960 at you, but also that I did smile at you. Is that right?

00:03:28.440 Exactly. And, and intent is very important. You have to understand that intent, intent doesn't matter

00:03:34.220 at all. It doesn't matter at all what you meant when you did something. Cause you might see a lot of

00:03:39.020 people, you go into this journey and you're confused. You, you think, you think that whenever

00:03:43.940 you do or say something like the main thing that matters is what you meant and intended when you did

00:03:50.600 and said it. Um, but a big part of the journey is to realize that that it's not the case. Like it does

00:03:56.380 not matter what you meant, what you intended, your own motivations don't matter. It is entirely up to

00:04:02.340 the person who is perceiving as the person on the outside. If it's, if it's a non-white person,

00:04:08.080 uh, they get to decide however they felt about it is what you intended, whether you intended it or

00:04:13.980 not. So it's a little bit confusing, but that's, that's the thing. And that's why something seemingly

00:04:19.520 as simple as your facial expressions, when you're around a person of color, uh, that it's, it's, it's

00:04:26.060 fraught. You just, you never know. And it could be racist to smile, um, at, uh, at a person of color.

00:04:32.360 When I first heard that I thought to myself, great. Um, I'm, I'm safe because I smile like two

00:04:39.360 times a year and I'll just, I'll save those. I won't use those on a person of color. Uh, but then 1.00

00:04:44.020 I come to find out that not smiling, um, is also racist and, and, uh, it, but how do you know which

00:04:52.120 one? Well, you don't, it's the person of color who is perceiving it, who's, who's witnessing it. 0.97

00:04:57.200 Right. Uh, they, they're the ones who decide and they'll let you know, uh, whether it was racist or

00:05:02.040 not. And when they let you know, all you can say is, uh, uh, okay. Thank you for, for telling me.

00:05:09.660 I'm also gathering that it is simultaneously racism is inescapable for people of less melanin,

00:05:18.700 like you and me. It's totally inescapable. We are born into it. It is basically an innate part

00:05:24.660 of our system and therefore character. But at the same time, you can maybe pay your way out of it

00:05:32.180 because you can pay, you know, $30,000 or $50,000 to one of these people to basically kind of like be

00:05:39.700 your Sherpa out of the racial construct in like out of racism. So I guess I'm confused. Like,

00:05:45.720 is it possible for me to take certain steps to do the work and pay the money to not be racist?

00:05:51.680 Or am I just always going to be racist? And why should I pay Robin DiAngelo in the first place?

00:05:56.800 I'm trying to square that. Um, well that, and you're see, that's something you're trying to

00:06:03.640 square. You're, you're doing something, uh, called, called, uh, uh, rational thought. Okay.

00:06:09.300 You're trying to apply rational thought. You're trying to understand, uh, which, and these are

00:06:15.100 both rational thought and understanding are hallmarks of white supremacy. And so what I'm

00:06:18.660 picking up from you is, uh, your own, your own white supremacy speaking. So I'm getting a lot of

00:06:24.340 racism, even from what you're saying right now, uh, because you're demanding, you're hearing

00:06:29.100 something, you're saying, well, I want to understand that your demand, the demand that you're

00:06:33.720 making for something to make sense is, is that's white supremacy. You're saying as a white person,

00:06:40.980 this thing has to make sense to me. And so frankly, how dare you, but to answer the question,

00:06:45.200 uh, you, you can't pay your way out of racism, but you should still pay. Uh, so pay and consult

00:06:53.920 these people, pay them what they ask. Uh, obviously don't question whatever they ask, pay it. It's,

00:06:58.820 it's what they need. Um, do, do the work, do all the work that they say. Yeah. And when you're at

00:07:05.360 the end of that process, you'll discover that you're, you're still not, not racist. Um, you're

00:07:11.040 probably not even less racist, but you're, but you're paying and you're doing the work and there's

00:07:16.280 some, there's some value in that. You just have to take that on faith is all I can say.

00:07:21.260 Yeah. So not only am I getting nothing in exchange, I'm actually kind of still getting punished

00:07:25.780 for doing the work that I'm being asked to do and paying the money that is being demanded.

00:07:30.980 Okay. Absolutely. Absolutely.

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00:09:02.240 There's another quandary here. And I'm trying not to, like, you know, you mentioned rational thought

00:09:07.280 being bad. And I'm trying not to critically think too hard about this. I think that seems to be an

00:09:12.340 important aspect of this is just kind of suspend all thinking. But you do pose a question in this

00:09:19.280 documentary that I still haven't been able to figure out. And that is the Moana problem. I'm,

00:09:25.080 you know, I'm a mom of Daughters 2. And as you, as you pose to this anti-racist

00:09:32.560 expert, is it cultural appropriation or appreciation when we allow our daughters to 1.00

00:09:39.460 watch something like Lilo and Stitch or Moana? So here's Sop 1 for everyone.

00:09:44.980 My daughter's four years old. I am an anti-racist educator, quote unquote. She's still

00:09:50.620 watching Disney movies and she is choosing a white princess over princesses of color.

00:09:56.720 Have you talked to her about that?

00:09:57.860 All the time.

00:09:58.520 My three-year-old daughter is very, her favorite princess is Moana.

00:10:02.940 Love it.

00:10:03.760 It's a good sign.

00:10:04.680 Yeah.

00:10:05.180 But then I also thought, you know, there's a little bit of cultural appropriation here.

00:10:09.820 She wants to be Moana for Halloween. 1.00

00:10:11.400 Mm-hmm.

00:10:12.260 So how do we navigate that?

00:10:14.960 Do I go and buy the Pacific Islander native attire for my white three-year-old?

00:10:21.620 Um, I wouldn't. I f***ing wouldn't. 0.97

00:10:23.800 But I guess what we might call the Moana problem here is what, on one hand, there's cultural 0.92

00:10:29.840 appropriation. On the other hand, there's gravitating towards white characters.

00:10:35.520 Right.

00:10:36.240 So it's almost like no matter which way you go, you end up back in racism.

00:10:43.900 We think every space belongs to us because we live in a white supremacist society.

00:10:47.480 Hmm. There's just so much to unpack there. And the wisdom, obviously, her wisdom is from her

00:10:53.920 lived experience, I guess. It's interesting how she also becomes, as a redhead, like a

00:11:00.300 representative of the more melanated community. And I guess, yeah, I just want to do the right

00:11:09.560 thing. So should I, is the last racist thing to do to only allow my daughters to like Cinderella 1.00

00:11:15.980 because she has blonde hair and blue eyes? What's your thought on that?

00:11:21.600 Um, well, listen, there's no way out of it. And I think our first, the first, the first step in

00:11:30.880 doing the work is to realize that there's no way out of it and to just accept that, um, you're racist

00:11:36.740 either way. And I, I've struggled with this ever since I had that conversation with, uh, that was

00:11:41.980 Kate Slater, the anti-racist educator. Um, and I, I've, because, you know, you come away from that

00:11:49.520 and it's like, there's not really an answer. She didn't really give an answer. So kind of where I've

00:11:54.560 settled on this is, uh, I still let my daughter watch Moana, but I sit in the room while she's 0.99

00:12:03.180 watching it and I glare at her disapprovingly the whole time. And so that, so I let her, so I let her

00:12:10.380 watch it, but I make sure she feels bad while she's watching it. And that's the only way that

00:12:13.620 I've found to, to, to thread this needle, you know, we're all trying our best to de-center

00:12:19.820 our whiteness. And that's, I'm trying my best here. I guess you could do the opposite too. Like

00:12:24.660 you could either allow your child to watch Moana and say like, Hey, don't like this too much. And if

00:12:30.700 they ever like start singing along or getting enthusiastic, you could say, no, absolutely not

00:12:35.860 calm down. Or you could do like, okay, we're only going to allow them to watch Cinderella

00:12:40.500 and sleeping beauty and glare at them. Then, you know, like, Oh, also don't get too excited

00:12:46.600 about this because these are white princesses. I think the point is like, you just always make

00:12:50.820 your kids kind of like feel bad. I think that's probably the goal, the anti-racist goal.

00:12:59.260 Right. Well, your kids are white. So that's the goal in general is you want to make sure that 0.99

00:13:03.020 white people feel bad all the time. I mean, you could have, yeah, I suppose you could put on 0.94

00:13:07.120 Cinderella or a little mermaid or one of those and, and then ask afterwards ask or require that

00:13:14.780 your child write a brief report outlining all the ways that this princess benefited from white

00:13:21.420 privilege and you know, colonial structures of oppression and that sort of thing. And so, you know,

00:13:27.700 that's an approach you could take. I think maybe that's another way to, another way to navigate this.

00:13:31.980 Yeah. I think at the end of the day, what the really important thing is, is that we should

00:13:36.000 never feel good about ourselves, right? Our children should never feel good about themselves.

00:13:40.400 We should always just be feeling bad, bad, bad all the time with nothing good in exchange. And just

00:13:45.460 knowing that we are going to like receive the ire and resentment of the people that we are trying to,

00:13:51.760 you know, make it up to. And that's really beautiful.

00:13:55.320 It is a beautiful thing. I find it really encouraging. Um, the idea that I should just

00:14:00.920 feel awful all the time I find to be, I find to be quite, it's quite an optimistic view of things,

00:14:06.040 quite hopeful. And by the way, this is, uh, this is something that I was directly told in the film.

00:14:10.260 In fact, I mean, this is basically a direct quote from one of the anti-racist experts that I talked

00:14:14.480 to a woman named Sarah Tocola, who, uh, previously was, was famous for a viral video a few years ago, 0.88

00:14:20.900 where she, uh, kicked some, tried to kick some white kids out of a study hall that she had declared 1.00

00:14:26.220 was only a study hall on campus, only for people of color. And so she was, she was maintaining

00:14:31.500 racial segregation in the, in the, uh, on campus. And of course, then she becomes a DEI expert,

00:14:36.460 uh, from that experience. But one thing she said that I thought was, that I thought was really

00:14:40.460 powerful is that it's, it's important for white people to feel bad because of what their ancestors 0.58

00:14:46.820 did. That's a direct quote. It's important for white people to feel bad. 0.70

00:14:49.940 And, um, and, uh, it was the first time I'd heard someone say that directly.

00:14:55.560 Yeah. Uh, and I said, well, okay, I can, I can do that.

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00:16:09.600 Allie. What else surprised you? I mean, of course I'm, I'm surprised just in general how you had

00:16:19.420 access to all of these people, but even knowing that you're, you know, walking into a situation

00:16:24.660 where you're going to be hearing a lot of nonsense, was there anything that truly just took you aback

00:16:29.580 and you realized, wow, these people really believe this. Okay. Um, we're sort of switching

00:16:36.340 out of sarcasm mode now. Yeah. Well, you kind of transitioned us nicely with the answer to that

00:16:40.380 question. So now we're in serious mode. All right. Well, I, so I ruined, I ruined the transition.

00:16:44.620 I totally botched it. No, it was good. Uh, I'll say what surprised me about it. I mean,

00:16:49.560 I guess what I was most surprised by, I wasn't really surprised by the grifter types and the things 1.00

00:16:59.260 that they said, it was kind of what I expected them to say, although, although still quite

00:17:03.800 disturbing to sit in the room and hear it. Um, it was the, it was the, like the other,

00:17:08.740 the people who are not the people that are getting sucked into this scam, into this cult. Um, I was a

00:17:14.320 little surprised by the fact that many of them to me seemed more genuine than I thought they'd be.

00:17:21.360 It seems like they're true believers. I kind of figured that, you know, if you do something like

00:17:26.080 you go, you're, you're, you're one of the white women at the table at a race to dinner session or 1.00

00:17:30.320 early in the film, we go to a, a, a, a workshop, um, almost like an AA style, uh, support group for

00:17:37.580 white people who are struggling with their white privilege sitting around in a circle. And, you

00:17:43.540 know, I, I guess going into this, I would have thought that if you're one of the white people

00:17:46.520 that goes to something like that, that it must be like 95% virtue signaling that you're doing it so

00:17:52.920 that you can then tell your friends, Oh, Hey, I went, you know, that race to dinner. I went to

00:17:56.380 one of those. And from being in the room, I think it's more like 10% virtue signaling and 90%

00:18:03.600 they believe it. And they really think that this is that, that they need to do this somehow to atone

00:18:10.720 for their white sins. And I guess I was surprised by that. And also, um, you know, it makes the whole 0.98

00:18:18.200 more, I guess, more sad than I thought. Yeah. You talk about self-flagellation in it. And of

00:18:25.200 course, from like a humorous perspective, trying to define what that is, but do you think that is

00:18:31.480 that 90% that they are trying to punish themselves? Or do you think they're truly hopeful that somehow

00:18:37.620 they're going to be able to break out of this supposedly white supremacist system and, you know,

00:18:42.020 I don't know, do good for the marginalized communities? I think it's a little bit of 1.00

00:18:47.700 both, but I do think that there's a kind of a spiritual component to this. And I've thought

00:18:51.140 a lot about it and, uh, I don't, I can't, I know you can't go, you can only go so far psychoanalyzing

00:18:57.380 these people, but I do think that, I do think that they, you know, they walk around with guilt

00:19:03.560 and everybody has guilt. All people have guilt because we're fallen, you know, we're a fallen

00:19:09.260 race and we commit sins and, uh, you do things you're not supposed to do. And so you, you feel

00:19:14.640 guilt about it. But of course, if you are a member of a, let's say traditional religion, uh, then you

00:19:22.000 have some kind of framework for understanding your feelings of guilt and you have something to do with

00:19:27.900 it. You, there's, there's, there's something that you could take it somewhere and do something with

00:19:31.620 it. And there's hope at the end of it. Um, hope at some point of being released of it, free of it

00:19:38.640 at some point, whether in this life or the next. But if you're, if you're, if you don't have that

00:19:44.020 religion, if you're a secular person, then I think you, you know, you still have the guilt though,

00:19:48.020 but you have no way of understanding it. Um, you have no framework for understanding it. So, so I think

00:19:52.920 that these kinds of anti-racist grifters come along and they say, okay, well, you're feeling this way

00:19:58.940 and I'll tell you why you're feeling it. It's because you're white. And here's all the things 0.99

00:20:04.920 you can do with this burden of guilt that you carry to be relieved of it. Then of course, after they do

00:20:11.320 it, they're given the bad news that, okay, well, good job for doing that, but you're still just as 0.93

00:20:16.580 racist as you were before. So they stay stuck in this kind of guilt spiral that they can never,

00:20:22.740 uh, be free of. And that's why I say it for them. It's like, there's a, it's, it's authentic. I mean,

00:20:31.800 I, I saw in all of these, in both environments that I mentioned, you know, these people were

00:20:36.240 breaking down in tears. They were crying. There might be an element of performance to that,

00:20:41.000 but I don't think it's all performance. Um, they really are like desperate to be free of this guilt

00:20:48.720 that they've been told that they have. Um, and yet there's no, there's no hope in the message

00:20:53.580 ultimately. So it's pretty sad. It really is like a desire for a religious experience,

00:20:58.880 I think. And it's the ritualistic ness, if I may, of religion, of course, without any of like the

00:21:06.460 beauty and the grace of religion, because you're told to repent, but that you can't really repent.

00:21:12.620 Of course, like repent means turn away from your sin, but you're being told that no matter where you

00:21:16.920 turn, you should repent, but it's going to be like a 360 degree turn. Like you're going to be

00:21:22.620 turning right back to your sin. You're never going to be free from it. You know, like Christianity says

00:21:28.640 that Jesus's burden is light and his yoke is easy, but this is like, no, let me place this really heavy

00:21:33.420 burden on you that you yourself aren't even guilty for, but like they use this vague terminology,

00:21:40.000 like your ancestors. And they're not even talking specifically about our ancestors because they have

00:21:44.880 no way of knowing if like your ancestors or my ancestors really did own slaves. They're just

00:21:50.680 talking about people who generally looked like us, who lived somewhere in proximity to us 200 years

00:21:58.400 ago. We have to not only like bear the guilt of other people living today that kind of look like 0.55

00:22:04.060 us, but we have to bear the guilt of people who lived centuries ago, who kind of looked like us,

00:22:08.300 even if they had no relation to us. That's like the exact opposite of the grace and the redemption

00:22:13.860 and the repentance of Christianity and all of the legalism and like the most terrible aspects of 0.92

00:22:21.180 false religion. Yeah, I think you're right. And the other thing about Christianity is that 0.99

00:22:27.160 there's a basic understanding that, you know, it's not that some people are sinners, it's that all

00:22:37.440 people are. And so this, the Christian message, the gospel message, and it's clear in the gospel,

00:22:46.260 it applies to every, to all people equally. Whereas this kind of, I guess what we might call the kind

00:22:54.880 of DEI version of original sin, it only applies to certain groups. And that's one of the problems

00:23:03.860 with this idea, as you know, like the idea that white people carry guilt for slavery,

00:23:08.680 things their ancestors did. One of the many problems with that concept is that slavery, in fact,

00:23:15.500 is a universal human sin. It was an institution across the entire world. Every group of people,

00:23:24.800 every race participated in it for literally thousands of years. And I've always said that,

00:23:31.580 I don't want to sidetrack us too much, but on that topic, I've always said that it's really

00:23:36.800 unfortunate that we talk about slavery in this ridiculous, narrow way, where the only kind of 0.97

00:23:43.740 slavery we're allowed to acknowledge is the kind that was perpetrated by white Westerners on black 0.99

00:23:50.400 people. It's unfortunate for a lot of reasons. One of the reasons is that if we can get out of that, 0.96

00:23:55.860 we can actually have, I think, an interesting, worthwhile conversation about the fact that,

00:24:01.000 everybody in the world did participate in slavery or at least was, you know, condoned it. Why is it

00:24:07.980 that for thousands of years, it like never even occurred to anyone on earth, apparently,

00:24:13.860 that slavery itself may be fundamentally immoral? That's this massive blind spot that was shared by

00:24:23.120 almost everyone for thousands of years. And we could talk about that. That'd be an interesting

00:24:27.220 thing to really talk about. But we can't because we're not allowed to acknowledge all that other

00:24:33.340 stuff. We have to just keep it. We have to keep up this narrative that white people are the villains 1.00

00:24:38.980 of history. And that precludes us from really learning any actual lessons from history. 0.80

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00:25:57.760 I mean, it seems like it would be really liberating for everyone, white and black people, if we realize

00:26:03.900 that if you go back far enough, your ancestors were probably both on the side of the oppressed

00:26:10.680 at one point and on the side of the oppressor, probably on the side of the enslaved at one

00:26:17.060 point and probably on the side of the enslaver. Like, no matter what your skin color is, we

00:26:23.620 all have a shared history of conquer versus conquered. Like, everyone does. And if we all just kind of

00:26:31.940 realize that and what you said about the general fallenness of man, we could get outside of this

00:26:37.760 resentment-based conversation about who is more guilty for what, where we put all guilt for

00:26:44.680 everything on white people and no guilt for anything on black or brown people. Because like you said,

00:26:50.540 like, from that perspective and in that context, you can't have any conversation based on truth,

00:26:56.820 based on reality or based on morality. Because if someone is seeing the world through that lens,

00:27:02.060 then everything becomes racism. Everything becomes a microaggression. And I just fail to see how we can

00:27:08.340 even have a society based on that kind of premise. Yeah, I think you said resentment and resentment is

00:27:16.780 the key. And that's what these, the anti-racist leaders of America, this is what they want to foster

00:27:25.260 is resentment, suspicion. Um, yeah, I almost hate to use the word division because it's so

00:27:32.080 overused. It's almost cliche, but in fact, that is actually what they're interested in is dividing

00:27:37.080 Americans. Um, and what you find is that I think, and we do this in the film, we go and talk to,

00:27:45.280 we talk to the anti-racist people. We talk to the kind of crazy liberal white women who fall into this 1.00

00:27:49.800 stuff. We also talk to just normal people and we go to a biker bar, um, in the South and they've got 1.00

00:27:56.520 Confederate flags hanging on the walls and that sort of thing. And the kind of place where if you

00:28:00.500 listen to corporate media, you would expect, you would expect if you listen to them to, to encounter

00:28:04.660 just like vicious racism. And that's not what we found. In fact, what we found was, uh, people that

00:28:11.380 said, Hey, I'm not, you know, I don't, I'm not worried that much about race. I mean, I noticed if

00:28:15.060 someone is black, but it does, you know, I can still be friends with a black person. We all bleed 1.00

00:28:19.280 the same as what they said. And then we went immediately down to, uh, New Orleans, the poor

00:28:22.980 parts of New Orleans and the black community, New Orleans. And, um, and we heard almost exactly

00:28:30.520 verbatim, the same thing. We all bleed the same was the same, the same line. Uh, so very similar

00:28:35.540 from these two groups that according to the media would, would despise each other. So I think that

00:28:39.180 what that tells us is that at least in modern America, uh, the default position for most people

00:28:47.840 when it comes to race would be kind of, it wouldn't be a big deal to them. That would be

00:28:54.020 their, that'd be the default position for most people who grew up in modern America where you're

00:28:57.440 around a lot of people, a lot of people have other races and ethnicities. It's just kind of like

00:29:00.640 naturally that's how it is. And if you kind of leave people alone to their own devices on this topic,

00:29:05.660 um, it, it, it's, it's not a big deal. They don't make a big deal out of it.

00:29:10.120 Yeah. I saw even some, go ahead.

00:29:13.240 Right. I was gonna say, they don't, they don't, they don't want that. They're afraid of that default

00:29:17.600 position. So they come in early, especially, you know, you want to, you want to get in when

00:29:21.960 they're, when they're young, when they're kids and tell them no, no, no, no. Like you need to

00:29:26.400 notice other races. It means it really means something. Um, you know, if you're a black person and

00:29:32.640 there's, you go, you go to school with your white classmates, you need to be suspicious of them. 0.96

00:29:37.540 Um, and all that kind of stuff. They want to, they want to create that resentment and suspicion

00:29:42.220 where it otherwise wouldn't be.

00:29:43.940 Yeah. And I mean, there's money to be made in those fissures, obviously, because they can say

00:29:48.660 that there's this huge problem and only them, the ambassadors of anti-racism can fix it for tens

00:29:53.740 of thousands of dollars. Um, I did appreciate the couple of people, both white and black that

00:29:58.540 pushed back on you. Of course, that guy that you sat down next to, and he said he

00:30:02.500 immigrated here in like the seventies and he just completely rebuffed any of your, you know,

00:30:07.660 satirical attempts to try to make him say, no, it was an America racist country. And then also

00:30:12.980 like the young white guy who basically told you to like, shut up and was like, just like,

00:30:17.020 stop talking about racism. That was really encouraging, especially coming from a young

00:30:21.340 person. And like you said, I feel like that's the attitude of most Americans. Like, can we please

00:30:26.440 stop talking about this? Most of us really just care about personality and behavior. And beyond that,

00:30:32.240 like we're being made to make an idol of people's skin color. And that's just not people's natural,

00:30:38.320 natural position or perspective.

00:30:42.220 Yeah, exactly. I mean, we, we, we, uh, opened the movie talking about,

00:30:46.580 I'm talking in the nineties, growing up in the nineties, which, which was not a racial utopia. 0.58

00:30:53.000 There's never going to be a racial utopia. We know that. But, and in the nineties, you know,

00:30:56.540 there was the OJ verdict. There was, there were race riots. We know that. So it wasn't perfect,

00:31:01.560 but, um, I know I'm not the only one who grew up in the nineties and can think back to that.

00:31:06.760 And I grew up, I went to school and it was a diverse, uh, community and it just, we didn't,

00:31:14.340 I don't remember sitting around at school, going to public school, 13 years, K through 12.

00:31:19.100 I don't remember like sitting around talking about racism constantly. I'm certain, I'm sure the

00:31:24.960 subject came up, but it wasn't, it wasn't anywhere near the kind of big deal that it is now. And which,

00:31:30.860 which is interesting because you would think like as time goes on and we get further and further away

00:31:37.860 from slavery, Jim Crow, uh, you would think that things should just kind of be naturally getting

00:31:43.880 better. And it seems like they were for a while, but now we're going backwards, which is why

00:31:49.020 you also have it, not to bring it back to slavery, but you know, you start tearing down the Confederate

00:31:56.840 monuments and civil war monuments. It's just, it's fascinating that people today are the wounds of

00:32:06.240 the civil war for people today who were born in like 2002. Those wounds apparently are more fresh and

00:32:13.580 more raw for them than it was for people who lived in like 1880. Yeah. You know, um, we are less able

00:32:20.960 now to talk about the civil war in a rational, objective, emotionless way than they were literally

00:32:28.300 150 years ago. Yeah. I mean, back when people who fought in the war were still living. Yeah. Uh,

00:32:34.780 it it's crazy. Uh, but this is all, it's all deliberate of course. Well, that's the kind of

00:32:39.420 conundrum that a lot of like these race baiters find themselves in. Like on the one hand, they'll

00:32:46.280 say all disparities between white and black people are due to Jim Crow and like perpetual

00:32:50.840 discrimination and racism, but they can't explain why those gaps were smaller when we were actually

00:32:55.980 closer to slavery and Jim Crow and all of those things. As we get further away from that, shouldn't

00:33:01.560 those gaps be smaller if it's really due to systemic and like historical oppression? But of course,

00:33:07.380 you're not allowed to look at other factors without being condemned as a racist, which again,

00:33:11.140 just means we can't have any honest conversations about anything because we have to start with the

00:33:17.180 premise that white, bad, brown, good. And yeah, that's a hard place to be stuck in.

00:33:24.520 Yeah. We can't talk about, of course, family, the state of the family, the state of the black family,

00:33:29.860 80% fatherless rate, uh, especially in urban communities. Um, yeah, we can't talk about those kinds 0.55

00:33:36.620 of things. And I do think that when we, when we, this, when we talk about the fact that we're kind

00:33:43.340 of, we seem to be going backwards, um, and I'm not the only person to notice that it seems like

00:33:49.580 right around the time Obama was elected is when this backslide really started in earnest. And I

00:33:56.580 think that that again was quite deliberate. And one of the reasons is that, you know, we were told

00:34:02.060 about systemic racism that the system itself is rigged against non-white people, so-called people 1.00

00:34:08.100 of color, quote unquote. Uh, well, if that's the case, then it would seem that the, the number one

00:34:17.280 way to prove that this, the system is no longer rigged against black people is to have a black man 1.00

00:34:22.540 who makes it all the way to the top of the system and is now running it. And, and didn't just, you know,

00:34:28.060 he didn't sneak in there. He was elected. Um, so this would be the number one evidence that

00:34:35.220 systemic racism is no longer an issue in America is Barack Obama was elected, which of course it is,

00:34:39.960 you know, but, but the left looked at that and they said, well, we can't lose that. We can't

00:34:44.460 systemic, this idea of systemic racism is such a powerful, potent tool. We can't lose it. And so now,

00:34:51.120 now that ironically, now that we have a black president, we have to redouble our efforts, 0.92

00:34:54.660 um, to, you know, convince people that America is systemically racist. And that's when, you know, 0.80

00:35:01.880 it wasn't long after that, when we had BLM, it wasn't long after that, when every police shooting

00:35:07.680 of a black man, even if it was clearly justified is now, you know, an example of racism, then it

00:35:12.980 wasn't long after that, that we had this rash that's still ongoing rash of the most absurd hate

00:35:18.300 crime hoaxes imaginable. Uh, so I think it's all part of that, that general effort.

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00:36:25.460 One of those absurd stories that I know that you've commented on is a man in Maryland who

00:36:30.240 is going through the Chick-fil-A drive-thru and his name was Marquise. And I guess he didn't speak

00:36:35.360 clearly, at least to the person at Chick-fil-A who was taking his order. And the person thought

00:36:39.460 he said monkeys, which is unfortunate. That's an unfortunate mishearing. And so he put monkeys

00:36:45.840 on the receipt. Of course, this man, whose name is Marquise, said that, oh, this was obviously

00:36:51.420 racist. This person was obviously being bigoted towards me because of my skin color. It's amazing 1.00

00:36:58.580 to me how people still believe that there is this kind of brazen, outright racism out there

00:37:06.420 that would happen at a place like Chick-fil-A in Maryland. When we see the repercussions that

00:37:13.340 someone has to deal with, even for just doing something that is perceived wrongly as racist,

00:37:18.640 that someone really believes that someone would call him a monkey purposely at the Chick-fil-A

00:37:24.600 drive-thru. But this ended up becoming this viral story that made it on NBC. And we're supposed

00:37:31.180 to believe that, yeah, this is just evidence of more systemic racism.

00:37:36.420 Right. We're supposed to believe that somebody, that some kid working at a drive-thru at Chick-fil-A

00:37:41.660 would just decide randomly to destroy his own life, not just get fired, but destroy his life 0.98

00:37:47.380 probably permanently for the sake of calling a black guy a monkey. And by the way, this was a 0.99

00:37:53.700 Chick-fil-A in Maryland, as you pointed out. I grew up in Maryland. It is a racially diverse place.

00:38:01.340 So we could be pretty certain that this kid working the drive-thru, he had served many black

00:38:06.700 customers. And did he call them all monkeys? Or did he just randomly decide, well, this time I'm 0.94

00:38:11.940 going to do it? No, of course, it's ridiculous. And actually, I feel bad for the kid, of course. 0.98

00:38:19.580 And also, you put yourself in his shoes for a second, because you can kind of imagine, we can't read his

00:38:24.140 mind. Do you kind of imagine what's going on in his mind? Because, you know, he asked the guy his

00:38:28.140 name. He doesn't understand. He thinks he hears monkeys. But in his mind, he can't ask that. Like,

00:38:34.740 he can't clarify. He can't say, oh, did you say, did you say monkeys? He can't say that. And so he's

00:38:40.660 probably thinking in his mind, like, what's a name that's close to monkeys that I could just put here?

00:38:45.220 And he couldn't think of anything. Yeah. Because Marquise doesn't jump into your mind. And so he puts it

00:38:48.940 down. And you know, people say a lot of weird things. People probably come through the drive

00:38:54.520 through and say a lot of weird things that their name is. Maybe they're joking. Maybe they're like

00:38:59.320 messing around with their friends. He I think he probably just wrote down what he heard just

00:39:03.720 thinking, you know what, whatever. Yeah, I mean, people get I get fake names at the drive through

00:39:09.120 all the time because I don't people spit in my food. So, you know, who knows? People get people get

00:39:13.900 fake names all the time. But of course, we don't there's no benefit of the doubt anymore for

00:39:18.700 for anybody. There's no grace. There's no like, OK, hold on a second. I mean, let's let's just

00:39:25.520 assume before we've even investigated this, let's just probably assume that probably this kid is not

00:39:32.240 some vicious racist who infiltrated Chick-fil-A. That would be the irrational, I think. Yeah. Nice

00:39:40.060 way of approaching it. You know, I also felt bad when I was watching your documentary and was reminded of

00:39:44.780 that story of the little girls. They were at Disneyland or Disney World and like or they were at some

00:39:50.460 festival, some fair and a Muppet passed by these two young girls. And because they were black little

00:39:59.000 girls, the mother assumed that this big Muppet passed by them because of the color of their skin 0.80

00:40:05.560 and like lawyers got involved, which is that's a lot. And of course, she talked to you. She talked to

00:40:11.940 the news about this. This was a really this was a really big deal. And I just thought about that

00:40:18.320 employee who probably gets paid nothing and of course didn't do this on purpose. And I hope that her life

00:40:24.700 wasn't ruined. But I mean, that's a lot to put on a person with absolutely no evidence. And yet that's like

00:40:31.220 the only kind of accusation that we can launch towards someone without any proof and not only

00:40:37.620 not be punished for it, but actually be rewarded for it. Yeah, well, and part of it is when you have

00:40:44.000 the framework of systemic racism, when you have the idea that which is what these anti-racist grifters

00:40:53.140 teach that all white people are inherently racist to begin with. Then when things happen to you,

00:41:00.560 when you have kind of unfortunate, annoying, unpleasant things that happen in your life,

00:41:05.860 you automatically interpret it through that lens. Whereas those of us who don't have that,

00:41:13.620 we don't we don't we don't have that framework because we don't listen to these people.

00:41:17.600 You know, unfortunate, unpleasant things happen to us. And we we we we understand it as just like,

00:41:23.120 well, things like that happen in life. And this goes, I mean, Michelle Obama, we can remember when

00:41:29.840 she was in the White House, a few incidences like this. But I remember one, I think, where she said

00:41:35.020 that she had some horror story, I believe, if I remember correctly, where she was in line for ice

00:41:41.240 cream or something and a woman cut in front of her in line. And and she, of course, said, well,

00:41:48.960 that must be racism because I'm a black woman. Meanwhile, all the rest of us, we've all had the

00:41:55.280 experience of having someone cut in line. And yes, it's annoying. We don't like it. It can even

00:41:59.900 be infuriating if you're already having a bad day and someone cuts in line. But there's no reason to

00:42:05.500 see that in a racial context unless that's just how your mind works and you see everything in a racial

00:42:09.320 context. Yeah. She said something, you know, in that vein at the DNC in her speech, she said,

00:42:14.660 you know, Donald Trump can't stand to see two powerful, well-educated black people become

00:42:19.820 successful. And I'm like, oh, it definitely couldn't be because you're his political opponents.

00:42:23.360 It's it's definitely because of that. It's all that's always it seems like among those progressive

00:42:29.380 activists, the default. All right. Since we go ahead. Yeah. If Kamala Harris was white, 1.00

00:42:37.620 then Donald Trump would he just drop out of the race and say, OK, you can be president.

00:42:42.640 You know, he would he would just get if she was white, he would. We know famously, like when he's 0.93

00:42:47.900 going against white opponents, he doesn't he's very gentle. He's very nice. And and

00:42:53.100 he barely even campaigns, you know. So, yeah. Yeah. It's definitely just because of skin color, 0.99

00:42:58.420 for sure. OK, I want to ask the question that I know everyone is wondering. I know that you've

00:43:02.820 been asked before. But as I'm watching this, as everyone is watching this, we're thinking,

00:43:07.400 how in the world did you get access to these places? Like, how did you become the waiter at

00:43:13.360 this like race to dinner? Thing? Like, how did you bring cameras in there and get to like play this

00:43:22.720 role in these places? And these people don't even realize who you are, what you're doing?

00:43:27.280 Well, I can't give away all the secrets of the of the trade unless I unless I knew I wanted to give

00:43:38.100 up making these kind of movies entirely. And I wanted to retire from from this particular business,

00:43:42.600 which I don't. But I will say that, you know, there's no hidden cameras. I know I've seen that

00:43:48.820 question online. Well, it was hidden. It's not hidden cameras. Everybody knows they're on camera

00:43:52.640 and they all signed releases to be filmed. So I can say that much.

00:44:01.380 Why would they not be more skeptical? Why didn't they ask more questions? Why didn't they scrutinize

00:44:06.260 a little bit more? To that, I don't I really don't know. All I can say is that the answer that I have

00:44:12.460 given is that part of it is that these there's a there's a certain arrogance that comes with being

00:44:18.120 in this world. And you're very insulated from people who disagree with you from alternative

00:44:23.600 perspectives. Somebody like Robin D'Angelo, for example. I, you know, I don't know her. I don't

00:44:28.940 know what happens in her personal life. But I can imagine that she is not very often finding herself

00:44:35.320 in rooms with people who don't agree with her already on everything. Yeah. And so it's kind of

00:44:40.320 like this false sense of security that that comes with that. And so I think that many of them just

00:44:46.060 couldn't imagine that. They just couldn't imagine it going this way. They couldn't imagine that I was

00:44:53.060 going to do anything but agree with them and try to paint them in as positive a light as possible.

00:44:58.560 Yeah. Wow. OK, we have to end on on this. Speaking of white people, milk, raw milk. You went viral. 0.94

00:45:08.800 I mean, you're going viral for a lot of different things, it seems like on a on a weekly basis. But

00:45:14.460 this time it was because of your raw milk take and people got really upset with you. Were you

00:45:20.460 surprised because you said that raw milk, unpasteurized milk is disgusting. People should

00:45:25.960 not be consuming it. Were you surprised at the backlash you received because of that?

00:45:33.420 Yeah, surprised, amused as well. I don't I don't care that much. You know, I've.

00:45:38.080 I've said one thing in my life on the subject of milk, and that was it. I've spoken out. I've

00:45:44.080 spoken out one time in my entire life. I've been in the media for like 10 years. I've said a lot of

00:45:48.940 stuff. I've got like thousands of hours of me saying stuff. And that was the one time I said

00:45:55.600 anything about milk. And, you know, people seem to care a lot. It's also interesting that a lot of

00:46:01.740 the backlash that I saw was like people saying, well, how if people want to drink raw milk,

00:46:06.540 they should be allowed to. How could you tell people they can't drink raw milk? I never said

00:46:09.700 you can't drink. I never said it should be banned. Yeah, I don't think it should be banned. Go ahead

00:46:13.140 and drink all the raw milk you want. OK, I mean, if you want to drink if you want to drink cow feces, 0.76

00:46:18.180 knock yourself out. I'm not I'm not going to stop you. Now, I'm not going to come over to your house

00:46:22.400 probably and have a bowl of cereal anytime soon. But if you want to drink it, go ahead and do it.

00:46:27.260 I just happen to think it's pretty gross and we can disagree on it. I do think it's interesting

00:46:32.000 that for some people. The kind of milk they like is apparently like a center. It's a central aspect

00:46:39.140 of their political identity is milk. And I will say that that part I didn't realize I didn't realize

00:46:46.740 that it was that important to people. The subject of milk. Yeah, I didn't either. It's kind of like

00:46:53.800 when you bring up like pit bulls or something like that, which I have been on the receiving end of a lot

00:46:59.260 of pit bull hate, you know, pro pit bull haters get very upset about this. It I you know, I also

00:47:06.820 did not realize that things like that are part of someone's central identity and that they feel very

00:47:12.640 threatened if you have a different opinion than them. But I thought that that was humorous. Just

00:47:16.500 wanted to give you yet another platform to defend your raw milk views. Matt, thank you so much.

00:47:23.400 People can go to well, they can go to a lot of places. They can go to project 2025 dot com,

00:47:28.340 right? Find out the truth about that. But they can also go to the let's see what's the website for

00:47:35.280 amiracist? Is it just amiracist.com? Amiracist.com. Okay, amiracist.com. And they can check that out.

00:47:43.060 I make up an artist and I were cracking up when we were watching this. And it's so good. Matt Walsh

00:47:49.340 at his best. Thank you so much, Matt. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

00:47:58.340 Thank you.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - September 09, 2024

Ep 1063 ｜ Everyone Is Racist ｜ Guest： Matt Walsh

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