Ep 1063 ｜ Everyone Is Racist ｜ Guest： Matt Walsh
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Summary
Matt Walsh is an author, documentary maker, and anti-racist expert. In his new documentary, "Am I Racist?" he explains how we can escape the oppression of whiteness and systemic racism in this country through what he learned in his new film.
Transcript
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Matt Walsh is the host of Daily Wire's Matt Walsh Show. He is an author. He is a documentary
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maker. And you might not know this, but he is also a DEI anti-racist expert. And he is going
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to tell us today how we can escape the oppression of whiteness and systemic racism in this country
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through what he learned in his new documentary, Am I Racist? This episode is brought to you by
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our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to GoodRanchers.com. Use code Allie at checkout. That's
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Matt, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. So you went on quite a journey,
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a hair journey, anti-racist journey. There were a lot of journeys happening at once in this
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documentary. And as a white woman myself, I learned a lot about race and racism that I didn't know. So
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I was wondering if you could help us, or maybe primarily white audience, I think,
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understand a little bit. I guess the first basic question is like,
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what is racism and how do we diagnose ourselves with it?
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Well, I mean, the first thing you have to understand is that
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there's no solid definition for racism. Because if there's a solid definition for it,
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then that means it's possible to not be it. Because you could look at the definition and say,
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well, that's not me. I'm not that. But the most important thing that you learn,
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that I learned on my journey of self-discovery, is that as a white man myself,
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I'm racist no matter what. There's no way to escape it. And so I guess the definition of racism is
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whatever you happen as a white person, whatever you happen to be thinking or feeling at this very
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moment in time, that is what racism is. And if you think or feel something totally different
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in the next moment, then that is also racism. Because keep something in mind, and Robin DiAngelo,
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the great Robin DiAngelo, said this to me in the film, that there's no way to be not racist.
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Racism is on a spectrum. We love the spectrums, folks. And so you could be less racist,
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you could be more racist in any given moment, but you can never be not racist. And the first step
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in being not racist is to realize that you can never be not racist.
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Well, I remember you presented her with like, I don't know, maybe you could call it the hallway
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quandary or the hallway problem, as you were speaking to the great Robin DiAngelo. And you
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said, okay, if a black person says that smiling at them is racist one day, but the next day says that
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you didn't smile enough, both of those could be considered equally racist. And we really have no
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defense to that. Right. Am I understanding that right? Like that we simply have to take on those
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accusations and say, yes, it doesn't matter what my intent was. That was racist, that I didn't smile
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at you, but also that I did smile at you. Is that right?
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Exactly. And, and intent is very important. You have to understand that intent, intent doesn't matter
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at all. It doesn't matter at all what you meant when you did something. Cause you might see a lot of
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people, you go into this journey and you're confused. You, you think, you think that whenever
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you do or say something like the main thing that matters is what you meant and intended when you did
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and said it. Um, but a big part of the journey is to realize that that it's not the case. Like it does
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not matter what you meant, what you intended, your own motivations don't matter. It is entirely up to
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the person who is perceiving as the person on the outside. If it's, if it's a non-white person,
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uh, they get to decide however they felt about it is what you intended, whether you intended it or
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not. So it's a little bit confusing, but that's, that's the thing. And that's why something seemingly
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as simple as your facial expressions, when you're around a person of color, uh, that it's, it's, it's
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fraught. You just, you never know. And it could be racist to smile, um, at, uh, at a person of color.
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When I first heard that I thought to myself, great. Um, I'm, I'm safe because I smile like two
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times a year and I'll just, I'll save those. I won't use those on a person of color. Uh, but then
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I come to find out that not smiling, um, is also racist and, and, uh, it, but how do you know which
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one? Well, you don't, it's the person of color who is perceiving it, who's, who's witnessing it.
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Right. Uh, they, they're the ones who decide and they'll let you know, uh, whether it was racist or
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not. And when they let you know, all you can say is, uh, uh, okay. Thank you for, for telling me.
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I'm also gathering that it is simultaneously racism is inescapable for people of less melanin,
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like you and me. It's totally inescapable. We are born into it. It is basically an innate part
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of our system and therefore character. But at the same time, you can maybe pay your way out of it
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because you can pay, you know, $30,000 or $50,000 to one of these people to basically kind of like be
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your Sherpa out of the racial construct in like out of racism. So I guess I'm confused. Like,
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is it possible for me to take certain steps to do the work and pay the money to not be racist?
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Or am I just always going to be racist? And why should I pay Robin DiAngelo in the first place?
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I'm trying to square that. Um, well that, and you're see, that's something you're trying to
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square. You're, you're doing something, uh, called, called, uh, uh, rational thought. Okay.
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You're trying to apply rational thought. You're trying to understand, uh, which, and these are
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both rational thought and understanding are hallmarks of white supremacy. And so what I'm
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picking up from you is, uh, your own, your own white supremacy speaking. So I'm getting a lot of
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racism, even from what you're saying right now, uh, because you're demanding, you're hearing
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something, you're saying, well, I want to understand that your demand, the demand that you're
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making for something to make sense is, is that's white supremacy. You're saying as a white person,
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this thing has to make sense to me. And so frankly, how dare you, but to answer the question,
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uh, you, you can't pay your way out of racism, but you should still pay. Uh, so pay and consult
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these people, pay them what they ask. Uh, obviously don't question whatever they ask, pay it. It's,
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it's what they need. Um, do, do the work, do all the work that they say. Yeah. And when you're at
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the end of that process, you'll discover that you're, you're still not, not racist. Um, you're
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probably not even less racist, but you're, but you're paying and you're doing the work and there's
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some, there's some value in that. You just have to take that on faith is all I can say.
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Yeah. So not only am I getting nothing in exchange, I'm actually kind of still getting punished
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for doing the work that I'm being asked to do and paying the money that is being demanded.
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There's another quandary here. And I'm trying not to, like, you know, you mentioned rational thought
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being bad. And I'm trying not to critically think too hard about this. I think that seems to be an
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important aspect of this is just kind of suspend all thinking. But you do pose a question in this
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documentary that I still haven't been able to figure out. And that is the Moana problem. I'm,
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you know, I'm a mom of Daughters 2. And as you, as you pose to this anti-racist
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expert, is it cultural appropriation or appreciation when we allow our daughters to
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watch something like Lilo and Stitch or Moana? So here's Sop 1 for everyone.
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My daughter's four years old. I am an anti-racist educator, quote unquote. She's still
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watching Disney movies and she is choosing a white princess over princesses of color.
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My three-year-old daughter is very, her favorite princess is Moana.
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But then I also thought, you know, there's a little bit of cultural appropriation here.
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Do I go and buy the Pacific Islander native attire for my white three-year-old?
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But I guess what we might call the Moana problem here is what, on one hand, there's cultural
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appropriation. On the other hand, there's gravitating towards white characters.
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So it's almost like no matter which way you go, you end up back in racism.
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We think every space belongs to us because we live in a white supremacist society.
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Hmm. There's just so much to unpack there. And the wisdom, obviously, her wisdom is from her
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lived experience, I guess. It's interesting how she also becomes, as a redhead, like a
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representative of the more melanated community. And I guess, yeah, I just want to do the right
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thing. So should I, is the last racist thing to do to only allow my daughters to like Cinderella
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because she has blonde hair and blue eyes? What's your thought on that?
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Um, well, listen, there's no way out of it. And I think our first, the first, the first step in
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doing the work is to realize that there's no way out of it and to just accept that, um, you're racist
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either way. And I, I've struggled with this ever since I had that conversation with, uh, that was
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Kate Slater, the anti-racist educator. Um, and I, I've, because, you know, you come away from that
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and it's like, there's not really an answer. She didn't really give an answer. So kind of where I've
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settled on this is, uh, I still let my daughter watch Moana, but I sit in the room while she's
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watching it and I glare at her disapprovingly the whole time. And so that, so I let her, so I let her
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watch it, but I make sure she feels bad while she's watching it. And that's the only way that
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I've found to, to, to thread this needle, you know, we're all trying our best to de-center
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our whiteness. And that's, I'm trying my best here. I guess you could do the opposite too. Like
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you could either allow your child to watch Moana and say like, Hey, don't like this too much. And if
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they ever like start singing along or getting enthusiastic, you could say, no, absolutely not
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calm down. Or you could do like, okay, we're only going to allow them to watch Cinderella
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and sleeping beauty and glare at them. Then, you know, like, Oh, also don't get too excited
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about this because these are white princesses. I think the point is like, you just always make
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your kids kind of like feel bad. I think that's probably the goal, the anti-racist goal.
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Right. Well, your kids are white. So that's the goal in general is you want to make sure that
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white people feel bad all the time. I mean, you could have, yeah, I suppose you could put on
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Cinderella or a little mermaid or one of those and, and then ask afterwards ask or require that
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your child write a brief report outlining all the ways that this princess benefited from white
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privilege and you know, colonial structures of oppression and that sort of thing. And so, you know,
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that's an approach you could take. I think maybe that's another way to, another way to navigate this.
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Yeah. I think at the end of the day, what the really important thing is, is that we should
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never feel good about ourselves, right? Our children should never feel good about themselves.
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We should always just be feeling bad, bad, bad all the time with nothing good in exchange. And just
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knowing that we are going to like receive the ire and resentment of the people that we are trying to,
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you know, make it up to. And that's really beautiful.
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It is a beautiful thing. I find it really encouraging. Um, the idea that I should just
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feel awful all the time I find to be, I find to be quite, it's quite an optimistic view of things,
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quite hopeful. And by the way, this is, uh, this is something that I was directly told in the film.
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In fact, I mean, this is basically a direct quote from one of the anti-racist experts that I talked
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to a woman named Sarah Tocola, who, uh, previously was, was famous for a viral video a few years ago,
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where she, uh, kicked some, tried to kick some white kids out of a study hall that she had declared
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was only a study hall on campus, only for people of color. And so she was, she was maintaining
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racial segregation in the, in the, uh, on campus. And of course, then she becomes a DEI expert,
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uh, from that experience. But one thing she said that I thought was, that I thought was really
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powerful is that it's, it's important for white people to feel bad because of what their ancestors
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did. That's a direct quote. It's important for white people to feel bad.
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And, um, and, uh, it was the first time I'd heard someone say that directly.
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Yeah. Uh, and I said, well, okay, I can, I can do that.
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Allie. What else surprised you? I mean, of course I'm, I'm surprised just in general how you had
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access to all of these people, but even knowing that you're, you know, walking into a situation
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where you're going to be hearing a lot of nonsense, was there anything that truly just took you aback
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and you realized, wow, these people really believe this. Okay. Um, we're sort of switching
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out of sarcasm mode now. Yeah. Well, you kind of transitioned us nicely with the answer to that
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question. So now we're in serious mode. All right. Well, I, so I ruined, I ruined the transition.
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I totally botched it. No, it was good. Uh, I'll say what surprised me about it. I mean,
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I guess what I was most surprised by, I wasn't really surprised by the grifter types and the things
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that they said, it was kind of what I expected them to say, although, although still quite
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disturbing to sit in the room and hear it. Um, it was the, it was the, like the other,
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the people who are not the people that are getting sucked into this scam, into this cult. Um, I was a
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little surprised by the fact that many of them to me seemed more genuine than I thought they'd be.
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It seems like they're true believers. I kind of figured that, you know, if you do something like
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you go, you're, you're, you're one of the white women at the table at a race to dinner session or
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early in the film, we go to a, a, a, a workshop, um, almost like an AA style, uh, support group for
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white people who are struggling with their white privilege sitting around in a circle. And, you
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know, I, I guess going into this, I would have thought that if you're one of the white people
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that goes to something like that, that it must be like 95% virtue signaling that you're doing it so
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that you can then tell your friends, Oh, Hey, I went, you know, that race to dinner. I went to
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one of those. And from being in the room, I think it's more like 10% virtue signaling and 90%
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they believe it. And they really think that this is that, that they need to do this somehow to atone
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for their white sins. And I guess I was surprised by that. And also, um, you know, it makes the whole
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more, I guess, more sad than I thought. Yeah. You talk about self-flagellation in it. And of
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course, from like a humorous perspective, trying to define what that is, but do you think that is
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that 90% that they are trying to punish themselves? Or do you think they're truly hopeful that somehow
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they're going to be able to break out of this supposedly white supremacist system and, you know,
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I don't know, do good for the marginalized communities? I think it's a little bit of
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both, but I do think that there's a kind of a spiritual component to this. And I've thought
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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
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these people, but I do think that, I do think that they, you know, they walk around with guilt
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and everybody has guilt. All people have guilt because we're fallen, you know, we're a fallen
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race and we commit sins and, uh, you do things you're not supposed to do. And so you, you feel
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guilt about it. But of course, if you are a member of a, let's say traditional religion, uh, then you
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have some kind of framework for understanding your feelings of guilt and you have something to do with
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it. You, there's, there's, there's something that you could take it somewhere and do something with
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it. And there's hope at the end of it. Um, hope at some point of being released of it, free of it
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at some point, whether in this life or the next. But if you're, if you're, if you don't have that
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religion, if you're a secular person, then I think you, you know, you still have the guilt though,
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but you have no way of understanding it. Um, you have no framework for understanding it. So, so I think
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that these kinds of anti-racist grifters come along and they say, okay, well, you're feeling this way
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and I'll tell you why you're feeling it. It's because you're white. And here's all the things
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you can do with this burden of guilt that you carry to be relieved of it. Then of course, after they do
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it, they're given the bad news that, okay, well, good job for doing that, but you're still just as
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racist as you were before. So they stay stuck in this kind of guilt spiral that they can never,
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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,
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I, I saw in all of these, in both environments that I mentioned, you know, these people were
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breaking down in tears. They were crying. There might be an element of performance to that,
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but I don't think it's all performance. Um, they really are like desperate to be free of this guilt
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that they've been told that they have. Um, and yet there's no, there's no hope in the message
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ultimately. So it's pretty sad. It really is like a desire for a religious experience,
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I think. And it's the ritualistic ness, if I may, of religion, of course, without any of like the
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beauty and the grace of religion, because you're told to repent, but that you can't really repent.
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Of course, like repent means turn away from your sin, but you're being told that no matter where you
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turn, you should repent, but it's going to be like a 360 degree turn. Like you're going to be
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turning right back to your sin. You're never going to be free from it. You know, like Christianity says
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that Jesus's burden is light and his yoke is easy, but this is like, no, let me place this really heavy
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burden on you that you yourself aren't even guilty for, but like they use this vague terminology,
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like your ancestors. And they're not even talking specifically about our ancestors because they have
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no way of knowing if like your ancestors or my ancestors really did own slaves. They're just
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talking about people who generally looked like us, who lived somewhere in proximity to us 200 years
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ago. We have to not only like bear the guilt of other people living today that kind of look like
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us, but we have to bear the guilt of people who lived centuries ago, who kind of looked like us,
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even if they had no relation to us. That's like the exact opposite of the grace and the redemption
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and the repentance of Christianity and all of the legalism and like the most terrible aspects of
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false religion. Yeah, I think you're right. And the other thing about Christianity is that
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there's a basic understanding that, you know, it's not that some people are sinners, it's that all
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people are. And so this, the Christian message, the gospel message, and it's clear in the gospel,
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it applies to every, to all people equally. Whereas this kind of, I guess what we might call the kind
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of DEI version of original sin, it only applies to certain groups. And that's one of the problems
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with this idea, as you know, like the idea that white people carry guilt for slavery,
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things their ancestors did. One of the many problems with that concept is that slavery, in fact,
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is a universal human sin. It was an institution across the entire world. Every group of people,
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every race participated in it for literally thousands of years. And I've always said that,
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I don't want to sidetrack us too much, but on that topic, I've always said that it's really
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unfortunate that we talk about slavery in this ridiculous, narrow way, where the only kind of
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slavery we're allowed to acknowledge is the kind that was perpetrated by white Westerners on black
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people. It's unfortunate for a lot of reasons. One of the reasons is that if we can get out of that,
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we can actually have, I think, an interesting, worthwhile conversation about the fact that,
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everybody in the world did participate in slavery or at least was, you know, condoned it. Why is it
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that for thousands of years, it like never even occurred to anyone on earth, apparently,
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that slavery itself may be fundamentally immoral? That's this massive blind spot that was shared by
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almost everyone for thousands of years. And we could talk about that. That'd be an interesting
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thing to really talk about. But we can't because we're not allowed to acknowledge all that other
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stuff. We have to just keep it. We have to keep up this narrative that white people are the villains
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of history. And that precludes us from really learning any actual lessons from history.
00:24:46.500
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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
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
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
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.
00:29:13.240
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.
00:29:37.540
Um, and all that kind of stuff. They want to, they want to create that resentment and suspicion
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,
00:30:42.220
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.
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
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
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
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,
00:34:54.660
um, to, you know, convince people that America is systemically racist. And that's when, you know,
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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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
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
00:37:47.380
probably permanently for the sake of calling a black guy a monkey. And by the way, this was a
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
00:38:11.940
going to do it? No, of course, it's ridiculous. And actually, I feel bad for the kid, of course.
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
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,
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
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,
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.
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,
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.