The Ben Shapiro Show - September 08, 2024


The King Of Satire And Disguise | Matt Walsh


Episode Stats

Length

57 minutes

Words per Minute

193.95633

Word Count

11,104

Sentence Count

790

Misogynist Sentences

22

Hate Speech Sentences

29


Summary

On today's episode of The Sunday Special, I sit down with the man, the myth, the fearless leader of the Sweet Baby Gang, Daily Wire's very own Matt Walsh. Matt s latest exercise in trolling in the libs, Am I Racist? premieres in theaters September 13th. He s here to talk about the making of the documentary, the interviewees, and the rotten ideas it exposes. You know Matt best from The Matt Walsh Show, where his political commentary and cultural critiques highlight our nation s most alarming trends. Walsh is also the best-selling author of the children s book, Johnny the Walrus, which playfully points to the absurdity of transgender ideology. In 2022, Walsh s first documentary film, What Is a Woman? went viral around the globe for his clever expose of the gender medicine grift. Walsh s knack for revealing lies with satire has been captured once again in the new film, where the toxicity of racial equity is on full display. In the film, Matt infiltrates a white privilege grief workshop. He disguises himself as a DIE consultant to the queen of the anti-racist, Robin DiAngelo, all the while he threads the needle for us as viewers on the profound anti-Americanism that undergirds all of it. Don t miss this inside look at the film and grapple with the reality of the grift of the DEI industry. Don't miss it! out in theaters on September 13, 2019. and don t miss the rest of us here at Daily Wire with a brand new episode of the Sunday Special featuring Matt Walsh's Am I Racist? . featuring the star of the show, Matt Walsh! ! Matt Walsh, the man who made the film Am I racist? . . . Matt Walsh is a writer, director, producer, writer, and podcaster, and host of the podcast The Sweet Babies Gang. . He s also the author of Johnny The Walrus. He s a regular contributor to the New York Times Magazine, and hosts a weekly podcast called , and is a regular guest host on the pod cast of , where he gives us the inside scoop on what it s like to be in the biz. and what s going on in the streets of New York City, and gives us his thoughts on what s really going on on the streets. , including what s good, what s not good, and why it s good to be woke.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Let them expose themselves.
00:00:01.000 Let them do the work.
00:00:02.000 I don't have to explain to the audience or explain to the person why they're wrong.
00:00:08.000 Let them expose that.
00:00:10.000 And then we're going to put it on display.
00:00:11.000 Probably a lot of them are sitting kind of nervous right now.
00:00:15.000 Thinking about embarrassing things they said and thinking, like, God, I hope that didn't make it into the film.
00:00:20.000 I can tell them right now, it did.
00:00:24.000 And to Robin DiAngelo in particular, there's one moment that she's thinking, oh my gosh, I hope that's not in there.
00:00:30.000 Oh, it is, Robin.
00:00:31.000 Oh, it is.
00:00:32.000 On today's episode of The Sunday Special, I sit down with the man, the myth, the fearless leader of the Sweet Baby Gang, Daily Wire's very own Matt Walsh.
00:00:40.000 Matt's latest exercise in trolling in the libs, Am I Racist?, premieres in theaters September 13th.
00:00:45.000 He's here to talk about the making of the documentary and the rotten ideas it exposes.
00:00:49.000 You know Matt best from The Matt Walsh Show, where his political commentary and cultural critiques highlight our nation's most alarming trends.
00:00:55.000 Walsh is also the best-selling author of the children's book Johnny the Walrus, which playfully points to the absurdity of transgender ideology.
00:01:01.000 In 2022, Walsh's first documentary film, What is a Woman?, went viral around the globe for his clever expose of the gender medicine grift.
00:01:08.000 Walsh's knack for revealing lies with satire has been captured once again in Am I Racist?, where the toxicity of racial equity is on full display.
00:01:16.000 In the film, Matt infiltrates a white privilege grief workshop.
00:01:19.000 He disguises himself as a DEI consultant to the queen of the anti-racist, Robin DiAngelo, all the while he threads the needle for us as viewers on the profound anti-Americanism that undergirds all of it.
00:01:28.000 Today, Matt and I discuss the making of the film, his observations on the interviewees, and the most sinister aspects of wokeness.
00:01:34.000 All of us here at Daily Wire cannot wait for the rest of the nation to see the film and grapple with the reality of the grift of the DEI industry.
00:01:41.000 Don't miss this inside look at Am I Racist?
00:01:43.000 out in theaters September 13th.
00:01:45.000 Welcome back to another episode of the Sunday Special.
00:01:48.000 Matt Walsh, the star of Am I Racist?
00:02:00.000 Thanks so much for stopping by.
00:02:01.000 Great to be here again.
00:02:03.000 As always, it's amazing to see you.
00:02:04.000 So let's talk about... You know I did this show like seven years ago, right?
00:02:07.000 Really?
00:02:07.000 It's been that long?
00:02:08.000 Yeah.
00:02:09.000 You remember that?
00:02:10.000 Not at all.
00:02:11.000 I feel like I've seen you since.
00:02:12.000 Yeah, probably.
00:02:13.000 Wow.
00:02:14.000 It was actually the first interview.
00:02:14.000 Wow.
00:02:16.000 I ever did in my life.
00:02:18.000 Really?
00:02:18.000 Yeah.
00:02:19.000 I was really bad.
00:02:19.000 It was terrible.
00:02:20.000 Wow.
00:02:20.000 Well, you've certainly improved in so many of your qualities, although the beard is... Did you have a beard at the time?
00:02:27.000 It was more like your sad excuse for a beard at the time.
00:02:29.000 Right, and that's... I've learned to hide my face since then.
00:02:32.000 It's the key to my success.
00:02:32.000 Yeah.
00:02:33.000 Actually, in this movie, it sort of is the key to your success, as it turns out.
00:02:36.000 So, let's talk about the origins of Am I Racist?
00:02:39.000 So, you make What Is A Woman, the best documentary of the last 10 years, with director Justin Folk.
00:02:44.000 And then...
00:02:45.000 We're trying to figure out here at Daily Wire what you do next, and you come up with this.
00:02:48.000 So where did this come from?
00:02:51.000 Well, we knew we wanted to explore... The first question is, like, what issue do you want to get into next?
00:02:56.000 And it was pretty obvious we wanted to get into race and the anti-racism grift and DEI and all that stuff.
00:03:04.000 And the next question is, like, well, how do you approach it?
00:03:07.000 And, of course, with What Is A Woman, the whole...
00:03:11.000 Kind of premise of the film is just me going around and asking very, very simple questions, remaining like a blank slate, not really skeptical, but also not believing anybody the whole time.
00:03:22.000 I think we knew with this issue that that strategy probably doesn't work as well.
00:03:30.000 And we don't want to just do the same thing over again.
00:03:32.000 So our idea with this was like, well, What if we start in the same place?
00:03:39.000 I start by just asking questions, but rather than remaining a blank slate, if I just take everything I'm told and believe it uncritically and then try to put it into practice, where will that take us?
00:03:54.000 It made it fun, but also challenging because we didn't, when we started making the film, we honestly didn't know where it would go or what the film would be in its final, at the end.
00:04:04.000 I mean, it's a pretty audacious move.
00:04:06.000 I mean, as a terrible actor myself, who's now been in multiple films being a terrible actor, I mean, do you have any acting background?
00:04:13.000 Because you actually have to do some acting in this film because obviously you're not somebody who tends to believe things easily.
00:04:18.000 I think that that's fair to say.
00:04:19.000 You're not somebody who would uncritically accept the kind of stupidities of DEI.
00:04:23.000 But in the film, You kind of gradually are eaten by the machine that is DEI, so you had to do something different.
00:04:31.000 Do you have any acting background?
00:04:32.000 How was that for you?
00:04:32.000 I do.
00:04:33.000 I actually have an extensive acting background.
00:04:34.000 I was in a critically acclaimed performance in a film called Lady Ballers.
00:04:38.000 That's true.
00:04:39.000 And that's pretty much it.
00:04:42.000 That's the only... What I found is there's a little bit of acting in this film.
00:04:46.000 There is.
00:04:49.000 And my process for acting is I... What I did was I...
00:04:55.000 I thought I pretended.
00:04:58.000 That's the whole, I figured that's what acting is.
00:05:00.000 Wow.
00:05:00.000 Just pretend.
00:05:01.000 That's incredible.
00:05:02.000 That's my whole process.
00:05:03.000 Wow.
00:05:04.000 Like from beginning to end, A to Z, so you just pretend.
00:05:06.000 Just pretend.
00:05:07.000 That's amazing.
00:05:08.000 That's the whole thing with acting.
00:05:09.000 It's actually kind of easy.
00:05:14.000 Like I think anyone can be a passable actor.
00:05:18.000 It probably takes talent to be a really, really good one, you know?
00:05:21.000 So is that like since childhood you've been able to pretend just in that way?
00:05:25.000 Well yeah, every child can.
00:05:26.000 So I think every adult has it in them to be a good actor because as a kid it comes naturally to you.
00:05:31.000 And it's true, you're so filled with joy like childlike wonder that you just bring that back to the fore.
00:05:36.000 My inner child.
00:05:37.000 It spills out of you, like baubles from a...
00:05:40.000 From a fountain of jewels, it's pretty incredible.
00:05:42.000 In any case, to get back, I want to start this interview by playing a clip from the film, Am I Racist?
00:05:50.000 Which, by the way, everybody should obviously go check out amiracist.com and pre-buy your tickets if you have not already, which you should have.
00:05:57.000 But this is a clip from near the beginning of the film.
00:06:00.000 Why don't you tee up the clip that we're about to play?
00:06:02.000 This is sort of the very beginning of the film.
00:06:04.000 Yeah, this is very early on, and we discovered that You know, there are these workshops that, I guess we ask ourselves, like, if I want to start this journey, where should I begin?
00:06:16.000 Fortunately, there are a lot of DEI-certified experts out there offering their services for a fee, sometimes a quite handsome fee, and they have all kinds of workshops.
00:06:26.000 And so we looked into these workshops, and one that we found was a workshop for your white grief to work through if you, as a white person, feel grief, And guilt over your privilege, which I, of course, do.
00:06:41.000 I have a lot of grief all the time.
00:06:43.000 A lot of guilt.
00:06:44.000 I'm Catholic.
00:06:45.000 I carry around a lot of guilt.
00:06:47.000 As Catholics, we have a lot of Catholic guilt.
00:06:49.000 So I figured this is a good place to start to kind of unpack, as they would say, a lot of that.
00:06:53.000 And going to this workshop, we all sit around.
00:06:58.000 As you'll see, it looks like an AA meeting, basically.
00:07:00.000 A bunch of white people.
00:07:01.000 There's a black woman who's the leader of the group instructing us.
00:07:06.000 We were told when we first started, one of the rules is that if you're a white person in the group and you start to get emotional and cry, you can't cry in the group because white tears are manipulative.
00:07:18.000 So there's a cry room that you can go to.
00:07:21.000 Even to the other white people?
00:07:23.000 Yes.
00:07:23.000 Wow.
00:07:24.000 They don't want to see your white tears.
00:07:25.000 No white tears.
00:07:28.000 We got into it, and I discovered, as we were sitting in the group and talking about it and going around in circles and answering questions, I started to get pretty emotional.
00:07:36.000 It was... It was much more... It was much heavier than I thought it was going to be, I guess.
00:07:44.000 And so I had to leave to go to the cry room at one point.
00:07:47.000 And while I was in the cry room, unfortunately, a couple of people in the group realized who I was.
00:07:52.000 They put two and two together.
00:07:54.000 They talked to the other people in the group.
00:07:57.000 Told him who I really was, and this clip picks up with me re-emerging from the cry room, drying my eyes off, and then this is what happens.
00:08:06.000 The white participants in the group feel that there's something in themselves that they have to overcome.
00:08:12.000 When all that's being requested of you is that you be.
00:08:17.000 Hello.
00:08:18.000 How are you?
00:08:18.000 Hi.
00:08:19.000 Sorry about that.
00:08:21.000 Oh, no problem.
00:08:23.000 You good?
00:08:24.000 Yeah.
00:08:25.000 Remind me of your name again.
00:08:27.000 Uh, uh, Steven.
00:08:29.000 Yeah?
00:08:29.000 Steven?
00:08:30.000 Okay.
00:08:31.000 Um... Dude, do you want to come up?
00:08:34.000 Yeah, do you want to come up and... share anything?
00:08:34.000 Come up?
00:08:38.000 Sure, what do you want me to share?
00:08:40.000 Whatever's on your mind.
00:08:40.000 I just want to know that, like, my physical safety and yours and everybody else's here is okay.
00:08:45.000 Why would your physical safety not be okay?
00:08:48.000 Did I miss something?
00:08:53.000 I don't feel comfortable.
00:08:55.000 What?
00:08:56.000 Can you guys catch me up to speed on what's going on here?
00:08:58.000 You don't need to be caught up.
00:08:59.000 We're going to be silent.
00:09:02.000 Is it because I said I had 17 black friends?
00:09:03.000 It might have been 15.
00:09:04.000 It depends on how you count them.
00:09:09.000 I would really appreciate it if you left so that the people who actually want to be here and deserve to be here can get what they need.
00:09:15.000 Can you please leave?
00:09:15.000 I do want to be here.
00:09:17.000 I would like it if you left.
00:09:18.000 I'm trying to learn.
00:09:19.000 I'm on this journey.
00:09:20.000 Come with me.
00:09:22.000 Well... Thank you.
00:09:23.000 I didn't consent to be touched.
00:09:26.000 I'm not offering to touch you.
00:09:28.000 I'm offering to walk you out.
00:09:29.000 Will you walk with me and I'll answer your questions?
00:09:31.000 Okay.
00:09:32.000 I'll admit it.
00:09:33.000 I'll admit it.
00:09:34.000 My name's not Steven.
00:09:37.000 Maybe you already knew that.
00:09:38.000 My name is Matt Walsh.
00:09:44.000 I just was here on this journey that I'm just starting, but I see that I'm not wanted.
00:09:50.000 If you were on your journey, then you would have told us who you were, your real name, but you didn't.
00:09:54.000 Are you saying I needed a better disguise?
00:09:56.000 Is that what you're saying?
00:09:57.000 I don't know, maybe.
00:09:58.000 But you can figure that out as you walk out the door.
00:10:02.000 Yeah, maybe.
00:10:02.000 Maybe.
00:10:05.000 Thank you so much.
00:10:06.000 I really had a transformative experience myself.
00:10:09.000 And my pronouns are he, him.
00:10:11.000 Yeah, I'll walk.
00:10:12.000 I'll walk.
00:10:19.000 I did everything I could to fit in.
00:10:24.000 I opened up.
00:10:26.000 I was raw and emotional.
00:10:28.000 I told them about my black friends.
00:10:31.000 It was no use.
00:10:32.000 They rejected me.
00:10:33.000 And they called the police.
00:10:36.000 My mere presence in the room caused them pain.
00:10:40.000 I'll never be accepted if I look like this.
00:10:44.000 If they know that I'm Matt Walsh, they'll always be an outsider.
00:10:47.000 I need to go deeper undercover.
00:10:50.000 A whole new identity.
00:10:52.000 If I want to be an ally, I need to look like one.
00:10:56.000 Like someone who is progressive, tolerant, enlightened.
00:10:59.000 Let me think.
00:11:02.000 Have I ever met anyone like that?
00:11:04.000 Ah, yes.
00:11:05.000 Yes, I have.
00:11:09.000 What is a woman?
00:11:15.000 Why do you ask that question?
00:11:17.000 Am I racist? Rated PG-13. Buy tickets now.
00:11:36.000 So...
00:11:38.000 That's the origin.
00:11:39.000 That's the superhero origin story.
00:11:42.000 That's where the costume comes from.
00:11:44.000 And it is amazing.
00:11:45.000 I mean, you were able to get into extraordinary spaces by wearing a man bun and some very thin-framed glasses.
00:11:55.000 Yeah, you wouldn't think it'd be enough.
00:11:59.000 It's sort of similar to what we experienced with What Is A Woman when we were able to talk to people that we didn't think.
00:12:04.000 We get the same question with What Is A Woman, how did you get those people to talk to you?
00:12:08.000 And the answer is it's kind of the same in both cases, that a lot of these people live in a bubble.
00:12:14.000 Where they just, they can't even imagine that anybody would ever try to challenge them, or embarrass them, or expose them in any way.
00:12:21.000 Because they've never been around that, ever.
00:12:24.000 They've never been around anyone who would actually do anything but fall to their knees in admiration of them.
00:12:31.000 And so I think we were able to kind of take advantage of that sort of arrogance of these
00:12:34.000 people.
00:12:35.000 What's amazing about this sort of film is that, as you say, because they think that
00:12:39.000 you're one of them, they say things, a lot of these people, that they would never say
00:12:43.000 in a public setting against somebody who is adversarial.
00:12:46.000 Actually now that I think about it, I actually did something similar when I wrote a book
00:12:49.000 called Primetime Propaganda about sort of the insider Hollywood story.
00:12:52.000 And I just sent out a bunch of emails as well before I was much more well known.
00:12:57.000 And they said, and it said, I was a graduate of Harvard Law School.
00:13:00.000 My name was Ben Shapiro.
00:13:01.000 And so people immediately assumed that because my last name was Shapiro and I went to Harvard Law School, I must be on the left.
00:13:05.000 Because obviously Jewish liberal from Harvard Law.
00:13:07.000 And so instead of wearing a yarmulke, I would wear a Harvard Law baseball cap, just walking in interviews and people would just say the thing.
00:13:13.000 And a lot of this movie is that.
00:13:15.000 So number one, how did you get all these people in the room with you?
00:13:19.000 Apparently, I mean, we saw the budget.
00:13:21.000 I know the budget.
00:13:22.000 So it was not cheap to get many of these people in the room.
00:13:25.000 There's a good living being made by DEI consultants.
00:13:28.000 Yeah, that's the answer right there.
00:13:30.000 Most of the people we talked to were willing to perhaps even put their better judgment to the side if we just pay their fee.
00:13:39.000 Which of course is funny because they also claim that they're fighting racism and they want to get the word out about that.
00:13:48.000 But they'll only do it if you pay them.
00:13:52.000 So that's one thing we do in the film.
00:13:55.000 We tell the audience very directly, like, this is how much this person charged us to talk to them.
00:14:01.000 And you're going to see that some of the price tags are quite substantial.
00:14:06.000 And I think for folks who don't actually understand how deep-rooted this is in American society, I think most Americans, they look at this like, this is very fringy.
00:14:16.000 Not that many people that I think normies know goes to a white guilt seminar where they weep about their Exposure to white privilege and all of this sort of stuff, most people are presumably not doing, as we'll see in another clip, a dinner party with Siri Rao.
00:14:32.000 We'll get to that in a minute.
00:14:33.000 But this does pervade all of American society.
00:14:37.000 It's baked into law.
00:14:38.000 It's baked into employment policies at a wide variety of companies.
00:14:41.000 According to Kamala Harris, it's baked into her policies as would-be president.
00:14:46.000 Equity is pervading all parts of the federal government.
00:14:48.000 Maybe you can explain for a second, like, why Americans should really care about DEI.
00:14:52.000 It's become a buzzword on the right, but for a lot of people, they don't necessarily understand what it is.
00:14:56.000 Yeah, well, I think the fact that most Americans aren't sitting around in a circle at a white grief seminar or going to a race-to-dinner event, that's sort of the point.
00:15:04.000 That's why it matters, because most people are not true believers like this.
00:15:08.000 They want nothing to do with this craziness.
00:15:11.000 And yet, like, the people you see in the film are the ones who are coming up with these programs that are then foisted on normal Americans at their jobs.
00:15:22.000 So, maybe in your free time you're not choosing to go to something like this, but the problem is that this stuff is brought to you in places where there's no reason why I would be there.
00:15:33.000 The fact that you just want to work, you know, you're working a job that has nothing to do with any of this, and yet you're being forced to At the very least, listen to this sort of lecturing, if not actively affirm it in a lot of cases.
00:15:48.000 So, this is why we have to care about it, because we really have no choice.
00:15:52.000 I wish we were in a position where we could look at some of these people in the film and say, total fringe doesn't matter, what they say is totally irrelevant.
00:16:02.000 I want to get to a point where it is irrelevant, but right now it's not.
00:16:06.000 So, when you were preparing for the film, did you have to read a lot of the tomes from these people?
00:16:10.000 One of the people who you get in the film is Robin DiAngelo, the author of White Fragility, which is one of the best-selling anti-racist books of the last 10 years.
00:16:18.000 It's sold hundreds of thousands of copies.
00:16:19.000 It was used as sort of the guide for the pathetic white people during the race riots of 2020, during the George Floyd uprising.
00:16:26.000 Did you have to read through a lot of this material in order to prep for the film?
00:16:30.000 There's only so much that I can subject myself to.
00:16:34.000 I certainly, I listened to several lectures from these people.
00:16:36.000 I did read Robin DiAngelo's book, White Fragility.
00:16:39.000 Truly an awful piece of shit.
00:16:42.000 It's horrific.
00:16:43.000 I mean, it's just... And it's also just... By the way, folks, if you want to see like a full scale review of that, I think I once did like an hour and a half review of this on YouTube, where I went like point by point through Robin DiAngelo.
00:16:53.000 It's such trash.
00:16:56.000 Yeah, I think I talked to you before we went and interviewed her, too, because I knew you were the resident Robin DiAngelo expert.
00:17:02.000 So you know from reading the book that it's not only, like, the ideas are terrible, obviously, but it's also just bad writing.
00:17:07.000 It's a slog to get through.
00:17:09.000 There's nothing entertaining.
00:17:12.000 It's just like being nagged while you sit there for three hours reading this book.
00:17:17.000 It's just a very unpleasant experience.
00:17:20.000 And I figure once you read one book, that's the other thing.
00:17:22.000 It's like once you've read one of these books, You get the idea.
00:17:26.000 It's always the same thing.
00:17:28.000 It's the same ideas.
00:17:30.000 All the people we talked to in the film, they all have the same central... It's the same central thesis.
00:17:35.000 And the way they define racism is that they are participants in a system that perpetuates racism.
00:17:39.000 As Ibram X. Kendi once suggested, he was asked to define racism and he said, a system that perpetuates racist ideas for racist purposes, which of course is not a definition of a term.
00:17:48.000 You cannot define a term by using that same term.
00:17:50.000 If I ask you to define shoe and you say, well, it's a shoe that fits on your foot, That has not helped in any way, shape, or form.
00:17:56.000 Yeah, there was a moment in time when we slightly toyed with the idea that maybe this movie should really be called What is a Racist?
00:18:07.000 Because we found that that right there is actually a question that trips these people up, which is just that.
00:18:13.000 What is racism?
00:18:15.000 Um, and with... Ibn Rayskendi is not the only one who can't really define it, because if he gives the actual answer, which of course is... it's not complicated, like if you...
00:18:26.000 If you hate someone because of their race, if you think another race is inferior to your own, then you're racist.
00:18:33.000 That's basically what racism is.
00:18:35.000 But they don't want to say that because then that, number one, that implicates all races potentially.
00:18:40.000 Anyone can be racist.
00:18:41.000 They don't want to accept that.
00:18:43.000 And number two, they know that most people don't feel that way.
00:18:45.000 And so if that's the definition of racism, the average person will hear that and think, okay, yeah, I legitimately don't feel that way about other races.
00:18:53.000 I'm not racist.
00:18:54.000 So these people have nothing to say to me.
00:18:56.000 I'm free.
00:18:57.000 But they don't— Well, it's a power game.
00:18:59.000 It's about implicating a system.
00:19:00.000 They're not interested in implicating individuals, only insofar as they can then use those people as an attack on the broader, quote-unquote, racist system.
00:19:07.000 And the way that they define racism is any system that perpetuates inequality, an outcome between two groups, is a racist system.
00:19:16.000 And the way you can tell that the system perpetuates the inequality is that the inequality exists.
00:19:19.000 So if there's any inequality of result between white people and black people in any measure of American life, except athletics, in any measure of American life, then it must be that this is a racist system and it's been set up by the group that is predominantly successful in order to victimize the other group.
00:19:35.000 success equals racism in this particular way of viewing the world, which is why Asians
00:19:39.000 are now white adjacent, because Asians are too successful, it's why Jews went from being
00:19:42.000 Jewish to being white. It's why if you are a black person and you are too successful
00:19:47.000 and you vote Republican, you are now considered white because you can't be part of that institutional
00:19:51.000 structure. It's all ridiculous power games masquerading using the words that we all thought
00:19:57.000 that we knew when we were growing up in the 1990s.
00:19:59.000 Everybody knew what a racist was.
00:20:00.000 It wasn't like you had to go through all these hoops to try and figure out what the hell it meant.
00:20:04.000 It wasn't particularly complicated.
00:20:05.000 And so you would see something racist and you would call it out and everybody sort of agreed on it and then we'd all move on with our lives.
00:20:10.000 But that wasn't enough for these people because what it really is is a Marxist revolution in the guise of race speak.
00:20:16.000 And, you know, they're lying about it and that's why they can't define it because if they were to define it, it would become clear.
00:20:21.000 That's also why they Part of the game is, especially if they want to implicate Asians and even some black people as being somehow partly white, the way they do that, of course, is you just tack on "-ness," at the end, white "-ness," and so you turn, you know, they've turned racism into this kind of amorphous concept.
00:20:40.000 And then they turn being white into an amorphous concept too, where it's... Yeah, if you have skin we consider white, then you're part of whiteness.
00:20:51.000 But you can be a part of whiteness and not even be white.
00:20:55.000 And we find that out in the film also.
00:20:57.000 That's a theme they return to quite often, is there's white people and then there's whiteness.
00:21:03.000 And whiteness is a terrible thing.
00:21:05.000 We'll get to more of that in just one second.
00:21:07.000 First, the IDF is on high alert in preparation for yet another attack.
00:21:11.000 Hospitals have prepared themselves to deal with mass casualties.
00:21:13.000 Major airlines have halted flights into Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.
00:21:17.000 Israelis have been told to prepare for at least three days without power and electricity.
00:21:20.000 In the event of an attack, Israelis across the country could be forced to spend days or even weeks in bomb shelters.
00:21:25.000 While these shelters do keep Israelis safe, they need to be equipped with basic essentials for survival, including food and water.
00:21:31.000 The Fellowship has launched a project to immediately equip bomb shelters with emergency food boxes for Israelis who have to remain there in case of an Iranian attack.
00:21:38.000 10,000 of these food boxes have already been delivered.
00:21:40.000 We're preparing to deliver thousands more.
00:21:42.000 In northern Israel, the IFCJ has delivered firefighting equipment, protective equipment for hospitals, two bulletproof vehicles, much more to enhance security and protect both ordinary citizens and first responders.
00:21:52.000 They're working around the clock.
00:21:52.000 They're on the ground.
00:21:54.000 We are looking For 300 more listeners to join me by donating $100 to meet these urgent security needs.
00:21:59.000 Thanks to a generous IFCJ supporter, your gift will be matched, doubling your impact in the Holy Land.
00:22:04.000 I'm so grateful for my loyal listeners, because we're so close to hitting our goal, so we need all the support we can get.
00:22:08.000 We have just a few days left until this match campaign ends on September 8th.
00:22:12.000 To give to IFCJ, visit BenForTheFellowship.org.
00:22:15.000 That's BenForTheFellowship.org.
00:22:17.000 God bless and thank you.
00:22:18.000 So, I think people don't understand how much work it takes to put into a film.
00:22:22.000 They watch the final product, and unless you've actually lived it the way that you did, it's very difficult for the audience to see all the work that goes into doing something like this.
00:22:31.000 For the sake of people understanding, how much time did you have to spend on the road?
00:22:34.000 How much prep was this?
00:22:36.000 What was your life like while filming this?
00:22:41.000 I want to say it's probably about almost 18 months of production on this.
00:22:46.000 And that means just us on the road going around talking to people.
00:22:54.000 Dozens and dozens of hours of footage that you then have to take.
00:22:59.000 Especially with a film like this, you know, it's because you're kind of figuring out the story as you go along.
00:23:04.000 And so you shoot a lot of stuff and then you go back in and you figure out what the story is and you build it out from there.
00:23:11.000 So yeah, it's a lot of time and a lot of work.
00:23:17.000 But it's quite rewarding work.
00:23:21.000 I think it's even more rewarding than like the work that goes, in my opinion, the work that goes into a podcast because people don't, People listen to a podcast and think that there's no work that goes into that, like we don't have real jobs.
00:23:34.000 Which, you know, maybe is fair, but it actually is a lot of work that goes into it.
00:23:36.000 But the problem is that you do a podcast, you give your take on whatever the news of the day is, and then tomorrow there's new news, and no one cares about what you said yesterday.
00:23:45.000 So everything lives for like 12 hours.
00:23:48.000 You do a film, there's a lot more work that goes into it up front, but hopefully, if it's successful, it will be relevant for more than a day.
00:23:58.000 That's what I love about it.
00:24:00.000 And one of the things that you obviously have to rely very heavily on in both What Is A Woman
00:24:04.000 and in Am I Racist is the fact that you have the world's best deadpan.
00:24:08.000 So I have to ask, how was this cultivated?
00:24:11.000 Is this a sort of natural persona, the deadpan?
00:24:13.000 How do you not break?
00:24:15.000 When I watched What Is A Woman for the first time and people were saying ridiculous things
00:24:18.000 and you were just absolutely stone-faced, I mean, I'm okay at it.
00:24:22.000 I'm pretty good, somewhere in the mid-range.
00:24:24.000 You're like extraordinary levels of deadpan.
00:24:27.000 And then there's a lot of that in this movie.
00:24:29.000 Here you actually have to act as though you are sympathetic to the things that people are saying, which I think is actually in some ways harder and in some ways easier.
00:24:38.000 First of all, which one did you find harder?
00:24:40.000 To keep a straight face or to sort of mimic sympathy for the positions?
00:24:44.000 I mean, you go pretty far here.
00:24:45.000 I mean, there are times here where you're actually crying.
00:24:47.000 There are times where... That's some pretty solid pretending, as you say.
00:24:51.000 Yeah, it's hard to say.
00:24:55.000 I mean, the answer of doing the deadpan is just, I guess I was born without a soul.
00:24:59.000 I don't know.
00:25:01.000 I'm an emotionalist freak, I suppose, is the answer.
00:25:04.000 People ask me that all the time.
00:25:05.000 How do you manage that?
00:25:06.000 That's just how I am, I guess.
00:25:10.000 I guess when you have this thing of not showing emotions, you have to find a way to...
00:25:16.000 Channel it.
00:25:19.000 Did you have to cry on cue?
00:25:20.000 Did you have to make yourself cry in the course of the filming?
00:25:24.000 Yeah.
00:25:25.000 Yeah.
00:25:26.000 Did you think of, like, a teddy bear being burned?
00:25:29.000 No, I honestly... I just thought to myself, well, what would it look like if I pretended to cry?
00:25:36.000 That's the whole... I can't even... I'd be the worst guest on, like, Inside the Actors Studio or something.
00:25:42.000 We're finding that out, right this moment.
00:25:44.000 I don't know.
00:25:45.000 I just...
00:25:46.000 Well, how did you pretend to do that?
00:25:47.000 I don't know, I just pretended.
00:25:48.000 Yeah, you're good at pretending, that's all I'll say.
00:25:50.000 I mean, you are good at pretending.
00:25:52.000 I cannot cry on cue, that would be a thing.
00:25:55.000 Yeah, but it is... The hardest part is always, in both of the films, is when you're in the room with just really terrible people who are saying awful things.
00:26:08.000 So it's not like I have to hold myself from...
00:26:12.000 Holding myself from laughing is not a problem for me.
00:26:14.000 Holding myself from yelling at them and saying, you effing moron, what are you talking about?
00:26:20.000 That actually does take effort.
00:26:21.000 So that's the difficulty there.
00:26:25.000 And really, in both films, it was very good that we had a great team behind us, Joseph Foucault, who's the director, who could kind of keep me on target.
00:26:37.000 Because in both films, I got to a certain point where I said, We gotta stop doing it this way.
00:26:42.000 Just put me in a room with one of these people so I can yell at them and argue with them.
00:26:47.000 Let's just totally change the direction of this film and just make it that.
00:26:51.000 I gotta go right at these people.
00:26:53.000 And in both cases, they kind of pulled me back.
00:26:55.000 And I'm glad that they did, because in the moment, you almost feel...
00:27:02.000 There's anger you have to suppress.
00:27:03.000 It almost feels like, this feels wrong.
00:27:06.000 I shouldn't let you say this to me.
00:27:08.000 In any other context of my life, if anyone said this stuff to me, I would never let them get away with it.
00:27:15.000 But you have to remember that what we're doing, we're trying to do something here a little bit more sophisticated.
00:27:19.000 This is not just debating or whatever.
00:27:22.000 This is like, let them expose themselves.
00:27:27.000 Let them do the work.
00:27:28.000 I don't have to...
00:27:30.000 Explain to the audience, or explain to the person why they're wrong.
00:27:33.000 Let them expose that.
00:27:35.000 And then we're going to put it on display.
00:27:37.000 Well, speaking of putting it on display, I want to show everybody another scene from the film.
00:27:42.000 This is one of the funniest scenes in the film.
00:27:43.000 There's a lot in the film.
00:27:44.000 It's really, really funny.
00:27:45.000 So why don't you introduce what's happening in this clip?
00:27:47.000 Who are these people?
00:27:49.000 So this is Race to Dinner.
00:27:50.000 And when we first decided to make this movie, the first thing I said to the team is, I want To get on Race to Dinner.
00:27:59.000 We have to find a way to get to Race to Dinner.
00:28:02.000 Because I'd heard of this Race to Dinner thing years ago.
00:28:04.000 These are two women, Saira Rao and I believe Regina Jackson is the other one.
00:28:11.000 And they've been doing this for several years now.
00:28:13.000 And their whole thing is they go around the country and they go to dinners.
00:28:19.000 And they sit at a dinner table with white women, only white women, and they sit there for two hours eating dinner and explaining to the white women why they are racist and horrible.
00:28:30.000 And just really kind of breaking them down.
00:28:33.000 It's like, it's honestly, you'll see in the film, it's like a, it is a, it's probably the first real brainwashing session, real intense brainwashing session that I have Personally witnessed and you can kind of see it happening and this is what these women do they go around the country and they charge money You know, they're paid thousands of dollars to come to dinner and call people racist now So we knew we wanted to this in the movie somehow First thought was of course was it'd be great if I could attend a dinner and sit there and be a part of it and We tried to make that happen and we discovered that no you have to be a woman You actually have to be a biological woman.
00:29:08.000 Hmm They had another way of putting it.
00:29:10.000 they said, I forget what they said, they said you had to be socialized as a woman.
00:29:14.000 That was their way of putting it.
00:29:16.000 But really, you have to actually be a woman to be at the table.
00:29:19.000 So that wasn't gonna work for me, unfortunately.
00:29:22.000 And so we came up with a new plan.
00:29:24.000 I was like, well, maybe I can, I can't be at the table, but maybe I can get into the room another way.
00:29:30.000 And we set it up so that it just so happened that I was working for the company
00:29:36.000 that was catering this dinner.
00:29:38.000 And so I got to be a waiter at the dinner.
00:29:41.000 But I went in with the goal of, I'm in the room, I gotta find a way to sit at the table.
00:29:47.000 I gotta earn my seat at the table.
00:29:50.000 And that's how I'll know that I've really moved to the next stage in my anti-racist journey.
00:29:54.000 And so I think that this, that's where this clip picks up.
00:29:58.000 I used to be a white woman, an unsuccessful one, for many decades, and it was a miserable experience.
00:30:04.000 And really, the hatred of yourselves and each other is, like, the most.
00:30:09.000 The not seeing your power.
00:30:11.000 Like, all you do is talk about each other, talk about yourself.
00:30:11.000 The being afraid.
00:30:14.000 Oh my god, I'm so fat!
00:30:16.000 That's all they do.
00:30:18.000 These white women?
00:30:18.000 I'm telling you.
00:30:20.000 But it's, it's, that's it.
00:30:22.000 It's, I'm so fat, I'm so stupid, I'm blah blah blah.
00:30:26.000 Sorry.
00:30:27.000 Your kids are watching you.
00:30:35.000 And they're watching you talking about each other, you know, raging against the machine or being silent
00:30:40.000 or whatever the hell it is that you're doing or not doing.
00:30:43.000 And they know that you're not doing for them.
00:30:45.000 That's so important.
00:30:45.000 That is so important what you just said.
00:30:50.000 It's really important.
00:30:53.000 That's all.
00:30:53.000 You may have to add Gene to our team.
00:30:55.000 Oh!
00:30:55.000 I would love to take a seat and join you guys.
00:30:57.000 No, you're not allowed to.
00:30:58.000 Okay.
00:30:59.000 Definitely not allowed.
00:31:00.000 I do have my, I have my DEI.
00:31:03.000 Certification that I got.
00:31:05.000 So... Not saying I'm an expert, but I'm also not a novice, so... Okay.
00:31:11.000 White people are starved for these conversations.
00:31:13.000 We are.
00:31:14.000 We're so starving.
00:31:14.000 Yeah.
00:31:15.000 We are so starving for this.
00:31:17.000 Anyone else?
00:31:19.000 Want to say anything?
00:31:21.000 I'll just say one thing.
00:31:22.000 I'm so glad we can have these conversations, and I'll be done, but I'm just so glad that we could all get together to have these conversations.
00:31:29.000 That's all I wanted to say.
00:31:30.000 Thank you.
00:31:30.000 Is he an actor?
00:31:32.000 Are you an actor?
00:31:33.000 Oh, no.
00:31:33.000 Can you let us... We're trying to listen and trying to have this conversation.
00:31:37.000 Okay.
00:31:37.000 You know, we're all acting all the time in our lives.
00:31:40.000 And I think that that's part of the problem.
00:31:43.000 You know?
00:31:45.000 That it's like we're all trying to play a part rather than just being real and having these uncomfortable conversations.
00:31:50.000 And that's what I'm always trying to tell people.
00:31:52.000 Especially, you know, white women.
00:31:54.000 No offense, but... No, but see, like, you're a white dude.
00:31:57.000 There's power positions, and, uh, you know, it's... Pointing... pointing... White people pointing fingers at each other is not helpful.
00:32:05.000 You know, I've been on this journey for so long, and just to see you guys at the table having this conversation has been really enlightening for me.
00:32:14.000 Anyway, got the DEI certification, and I'm just on the journey.
00:32:21.000 All right, you ladies have a great night.
00:32:27.000 Decolonize yourself.
00:32:30.000 Do your own white supremacy dismantling.
00:32:36.000 And then you can start to bring in other people.
00:32:39.000 Can I just say one last thing?
00:32:40.000 Can I just propose a toast?
00:32:42.000 I mean, just raise a glass if you're racist.
00:32:46.000 And that's the thing.
00:32:49.000 Oh, I'm not racist.
00:32:50.000 Let me try again.
00:32:51.000 It's a racist.
00:32:57.000 Oh, it's so good.
00:33:00.000 I earned my seat at the table.
00:33:01.000 You did?
00:33:02.000 In the end.
00:33:03.000 So, I mean, obviously, this is all improv.
00:33:07.000 I mean, there are no lines written when you're walking into something like that, I assume.
00:33:10.000 Yeah.
00:33:11.000 So, I mean, how do you make those decisions in the moment?
00:33:14.000 Because, I mean, I've been in debate situations, obviously uncomfortable situations, many of them,
00:33:21.000 but having the audacity to sort of walk around and say that sort of stuff to people
00:33:26.000 and then just take a seat, did you do a lot of pranking people when you were younger
00:33:30.000 or what, what's the back story here?
00:33:32.000 Yeah, I mean, I did, but most people, when they've watched scenes like that,
00:33:38.000 they say, well, it seems so uncomfortable, How did you deal with that?
00:33:43.000 It's a lot of fun.
00:33:44.000 I mean, you think it'd be uncomfortable, and it is.
00:33:47.000 It's super uncomfortable, but it's also a lot of fun.
00:33:53.000 Because it's like, we're making a film, and so it kind of gives me a license to say things and do things I wouldn't otherwise do.
00:34:02.000 And also, frankly, it's also fun to make a dinner like that uncomfortable.
00:34:07.000 These are people that richly deserve it.
00:34:10.000 Did you know you were going to give a toast to racism at the end of that?
00:34:12.000 Or that was legitimately a spur-of-the-moment thing?
00:34:14.000 We knew we wanted to end on a toast.
00:34:17.000 The only thing we had planned was we wanted to end on a toast.
00:34:20.000 And if we could get them to participate in a toast to racism, that would be fantastic.
00:34:24.000 Of course, as you saw, they did.
00:34:26.000 So we knew that.
00:34:28.000 And that was pretty much it.
00:34:29.000 That was the end point.
00:34:30.000 And the rest of it was just, we'll see how they respond.
00:34:33.000 We honestly didn't know.
00:34:34.000 I thought that there was a pretty good chance that the first time I interjected, they would kick me out, tell me to leave.
00:34:42.000 They didn't.
00:34:43.000 Another thing we discovered, it's like an interesting psychological thing we found making these movies, that people just don't, they don't want to get up and leave situations, and they don't want to tell you to leave.
00:34:55.000 People are willing to put up with way more than you think.
00:34:58.000 It is incredible.
00:35:01.000 I mean, how you don't break character?
00:35:03.000 How did you not break character there?
00:35:04.000 I mean, that's... The mask helped.
00:35:07.000 Yeah, that... Were you laughing underneath the mask a little bit?
00:35:10.000 Yeah, the mask helped.
00:35:12.000 That's another thing that we used.
00:35:13.000 That was a little bit of a, I guess, a behind-the-scenes... Some of the way the sausage is made here is that we were able to...
00:35:21.000 We started making this movie about a year and a half ago, so it was kind of after the mask craze.
00:35:26.000 But still, even now, like, if you go to really liberal areas— If you're a lefty, you can get away with that ten years from now, for sure.
00:35:30.000 Right.
00:35:31.000 And so all the places we're going are, like, far-left spaces.
00:35:33.000 And so, you know, we can use that to our advantage.
00:35:37.000 I can walk into a place, have a mask on.
00:35:40.000 They can't—not only can they not question it, But, and not only does it disguise your identity a little bit, but it actually gives you more credibility.
00:35:47.000 Like, now I'm more liberal than you.
00:35:49.000 I'm actually taking your health into consideration here.
00:35:53.000 So that was, that was nice.
00:35:54.000 That worked out.
00:35:55.000 So, have you had any feedback from any of the people who are in the trailer?
00:35:57.000 So obviously, Robyn D'Angelo shows up in the trailer.
00:35:59.000 Sarah Irau shows up in the trailer.
00:36:02.000 Have any of these people reached out and been upset?
00:36:05.000 Not yet.
00:36:06.000 No, not yet.
00:36:09.000 I kind of expected that they would, but on the other hand, I guess there's not a lot they can say.
00:36:13.000 Maybe, I'm sure eventually they'll come out, maybe once the movie comes out.
00:36:17.000 Probably a lot of them are sitting kind of nervous right now and thinking about embarrassing things they said and thinking like, God, I hope that didn't make it into the film.
00:36:28.000 I can tell them right now, it did.
00:36:31.000 And to Robin DiAngelo in particular, there's one moment that she's thinking, oh my gosh, I hope that's not in there.
00:36:37.000 Oh, it is, Robin.
00:36:38.000 Oh, it is.
00:36:41.000 So what was your favorite scene to film in this movie?
00:36:46.000 That's a great question.
00:36:47.000 At the very end of the film, I don't want to give too much away, but it's in the trailer.
00:36:54.000 You can see that by the end, I had become a DEI expert myself.
00:36:59.000 And if you're a DEI expert, what do you do?
00:37:01.000 You have a seminar, and you start dispensing advice yourself.
00:37:05.000 So by the end of the film, I was holding my own DEI seminars for people who came to be instructed in how to decolonize themselves and so on.
00:37:14.000 And I had a lot of fun with that.
00:37:17.000 That was a lot of fun, as you'll see in the film.
00:37:19.000 And what was your least favorite thing to film?
00:37:21.000 Probably the support group scene, because looking back on it now, it worked out pretty well,
00:37:33.000 and it's a lot of fun to watch.
00:37:35.000 But you also have to keep in mind that all the stuff in the film, some of the stuff is hours long.
00:37:39.000 I mean, that race to dinner, we were there for an hour and a half, two hours.
00:37:42.000 It was a really long time to be in these environments.
00:37:45.000 And that support group, you know, I was probably there for two hours, sitting in a circle with these people.
00:37:54.000 Just imagine what that would be like, and it's like, it's not pleasant at all.
00:38:00.000 So, on a personal level, you and I have talked a little bit about this, but five years ago, you were somewhat well-known.
00:38:07.000 Now, obviously, you're incredibly well-known.
00:38:08.000 What Is A Woman is a huge hit.
00:38:10.000 This is going to be an enormous hit.
00:38:12.000 You're really, really well-known across the country.
00:38:15.000 How has that changed your life?
00:38:16.000 Have you dealt with that?
00:38:18.000 Yeah, it helps that I kind of, that I live with, you know, I don't go out much.
00:38:22.000 I'm a recluse and I just live with my kids and my wife and, you know, I'm just at my house all the time.
00:38:28.000 And even before all this, it's like, I don't really want to go anywhere.
00:38:31.000 So that kind of helps.
00:38:32.000 And it's like when you're, when you're at your house with your family, you don't, you know, it's the rest of the world.
00:38:36.000 Oh yeah.
00:38:36.000 It doesn't, doesn't matter.
00:38:37.000 Now you're on the phone with somebody important and your kids are crying and somebody needs a diaper changed and your wife's like, hang up the phone.
00:38:42.000 You're like, there's things going on.
00:38:43.000 Exactly.
00:38:45.000 Or even, You know, you're trending on Twitter, people are mad at you for something.
00:38:50.000 And if you're in media personality mode and you're at work, I find that that stuff can bother me more.
00:38:58.000 I'm more aware of that.
00:39:00.000 But then it is kind of a magical thing.
00:39:03.000 So much of that exists just in this little box.
00:39:06.000 And you can go home and just put the box down.
00:39:10.000 And it's like it's not even happening, which is kind of a power move to know that in this little box there are thousands of people that are really mad at you and yelling at you, and you're just with your kid reading them a book.
00:39:21.000 That's why my favorite thing on Twitter on X is to mute people.
00:39:21.000 Oh, 100%.
00:39:24.000 I never block anybody, but I definitely mute a lot of people.
00:39:27.000 Oh, I've discovered the power of muting.
00:39:29.000 It took me a long time.
00:39:30.000 It's great.
00:39:30.000 It's amazing.
00:39:31.000 It's great.
00:39:31.000 They're just ranting into the void thinking that you're sitting there reading their dumb comments, and you're not.
00:39:35.000 You can't even see them.
00:39:36.000 There are people who have, for years, Have yelled at me, and I have not heard a word of it.
00:39:43.000 They have sent probably hundreds of tweets yelling at me.
00:39:46.000 This is the AI development that I want brought to, like, the actual real world.
00:39:49.000 That you just go out in public, and somebody's going to say something bad, and then they just don't exist to you.
00:39:54.000 That'd be absolutely wonderful.
00:39:56.000 And then the good thing is, I know we've talked about this a little bit off air, but of course, not surprisingly, people are much more bold on the internet than they are in real life.
00:40:05.000 And it's a really interesting thing that Like, if you were to follow me on Twitter, or you on Twitter,
00:40:12.000 And see the kind of reaction we get.
00:40:14.000 You would think that when we go out in public, like, half of the people that come up to us hate our guts and are, like, throwing tomatoes at us and kicking us out and saying they'll come around here.
00:40:23.000 It's, like, almost never happens.
00:40:24.000 I go out in public and it's 99.9999% of the time, if anyone talks to me, they're really friendly and, you know, they're just very supportive and they're wonderful, saying very nice things.
00:40:35.000 It's, like, the very rare occasion when anyone says anything even remotely negative in person.
00:40:41.000 All of that, almost all of it, lives in the little box.
00:40:45.000 So to get back to the film itself, so obviously you're taking on TI, it's a big topic.
00:40:50.000 It's obviously a big topic in this presidential election, and it's the undercurrent of the presidential election that we are not allowed to speak about.
00:40:55.000 As I've said before, the media like to play the sort of bizarre who's on first game, where they're like, we are appointing the first black woman vice president, and it's so important, and you're like, that's kind of racist.
00:41:04.000 No, like, what's racist?
00:41:05.000 Like, to appoint somebody on the basis of being black and a woman, like, no, that's racist.
00:41:09.000 Like, what's racist?
00:41:10.000 That you said that you're appointing her only because she's a black and a woman.
00:41:12.000 You're like, well, but you just said that.
00:41:14.000 Like, no, no, but when we say it, it's not racist.
00:41:15.000 When you say it, it's racist.
00:41:17.000 It's this whole bizarre game.
00:41:18.000 Now, how much does, you know, the DEI mentality infect our politics?
00:41:23.000 And what does it mean for this particular presidential election?
00:41:26.000 Yeah, well, when we call her the DEI president, as you said, that's, that's, we're just taking them at their own word.
00:41:32.000 And Joe Biden, This is what happens if you announce ahead of time that I'm only looking for... Now, you could claim... You could try to claim that... The most you could claim is that, well, she was the best black woman who was available.
00:41:45.000 And that I don't buy either.
00:41:47.000 But that's the most you could say, because you announced ahead of time that you're only looking in that particular category of people.
00:41:57.000 So... Yeah, it's a DEI president, and...
00:42:02.000 In a way I guess it's sort of good because it brings us to the forefront and the reality is that having a DEI president is a troubling thought.
00:42:14.000 It's even more troubling to me to think about having a DEI Airline pilot or, you know, heart surgeon.
00:42:23.000 And the truth is that this stuff infects all those industries also.
00:42:27.000 So, you know, the aftermath of What Is A Woman turned into a fair bit of activism.
00:42:31.000 And the third act of What Is A Woman is all about you taking the fight to the left, you know, going after places that are transing the kids, trying to go to states and say that this has to stop, that this is cruel, it's unusual.
00:42:42.000 I mean, it's basically a violation of the Eighth Amendment.
00:42:44.000 It's terrifying and horrifying.
00:42:46.000 And you're actually taking action.
00:42:48.000 When it comes to DEI, what are the sort of solutions that you hope that people take away from the film?
00:42:54.000 Well, there are political solutions, some of which, you know, Donald Trump has talked about outlawing programs that exclude people on the basis of race, which are already supposed to be outlawed.
00:43:06.000 Most of that stuff is, like, flagrantly illegal already.
00:43:10.000 So shutting that down, which a lot of that could be done on a policy level, I think, A lot of the other changes, I think, could be made relatively easily with just lawsuits, but people that are affected by this stuff need to file lawsuits, and we've seen a little bit of that happening already.
00:43:28.000 And yeah, we have an activist court system and all of that, but even so, I mean, this stuff is so flagrantly illegal that I think a lot of it only remains in place because it hasn't been challenged in the courts.
00:43:43.000 And so that has to happen.
00:43:44.000 And then there's kind of a cultural level too.
00:43:50.000 It's similar with what is a woman, that there were laws that needed to be changed.
00:43:54.000 A lot of those laws have been changed.
00:43:55.000 Policies need to be put in place.
00:43:57.000 A lot of them have been, not all of them, but a lot of them have been put in place.
00:44:00.000 But then there's a cultural level of People need to not be afraid when it comes to what is a woman.
00:44:07.000 They need to not be afraid to say what they know is true, which is that we all know what a woman is, we all know that it's wrong to do this to kids, and we all know it, so let's all live as though we know it.
00:44:18.000 Let's have a kind of culture that is totally intolerant of that kind of madness.
00:44:22.000 And I think we're starting to see that change culturally on the gender stuff.
00:44:27.000 I think it needs to happen on the race stuff, too.
00:44:30.000 Even if we make all the political changes that we need to make, we still have a problem if you have white people walking around feeling Burdened by guilt for things they didn't do that nothing to do with them It's just totally misplaced ambiguous kind of guilt that they but a lot of these people just carry around And and we have to get rid of that.
00:44:56.000 It's like it's actually kind of a freeing message It's not that we're not saying that we all should be we all You know have things we've done that are wrong And so if you feel guilt there might be other things you've actually done in your life you need to explore but You don't carry any sins around because of what people of your race did or didn't do 100 years ago or 200 years ago.
00:45:18.000 So, one of the arguments that I've heard on the right, I'm sure you've heard it also, is that we've hit Peak Woke, that we're actually on the other side of Woke Mountain and that it's all downhill from here.
00:45:25.000 After spending this much time in Wokeland, what is your takeaway?
00:45:31.000 Are we at Peak Woke?
00:45:31.000 Have we reached it?
00:45:32.000 Where do you think we stand?
00:45:35.000 I mean, the answer is I don't know.
00:45:36.000 I wish I had an answer to that.
00:45:39.000 I would like to think yes.
00:45:44.000 And if I were to say yes, it would be because it does seem like the culture is a little bit less tolerant of some of the crazier woke ideas than they were even three years ago.
00:45:56.000 Like, for example, when we did What Is Woman, we did the man on the street interviews, we walked, and this was, we were filming it three years ago.
00:46:04.000 We went to many different cities and we just talked to normal people walking around and asked them basic questions about gender.
00:46:10.000 What is a woman?
00:46:11.000 Is it okay for boys to go into the girls' room?
00:46:14.000 That kind of stuff.
00:46:15.000 And we found that the vast majority of people that we talked to, no matter where we went in the country, either didn't want to talk about it, were terrified to talk about it on camera, or gave answers that we could tell they didn't really believe.
00:46:29.000 I think that if we went around and did man-on-the-street interviews now, in the same exact places, asking the same questions, I think we would get different answers.
00:46:37.000 I think we'd find a lot more people that'd be willing to say, yeah, a woman is a female.
00:46:42.000 No, of course a boy can't go in the girls' room.
00:46:43.000 That's ridiculous.
00:46:44.000 I think that.
00:46:45.000 And some of it's anecdotal.
00:46:48.000 It's just a sort of feel.
00:46:49.000 It's a vibe I'm getting.
00:46:52.000 And I think that's probably the case with the race stuff too.
00:46:55.000 So that would be an argument that maybe we have reached peak woke.
00:47:02.000 The argument against that view, I guess, is just that this stuff is so deeply embedded that even if culturally, even if the average Joe on the street has woken up to a lot of this, we still have the institutions that run society.
00:47:18.000 And those are still as crazy far left wing as they've ever been.
00:47:22.000 And to change that is going to take, we're not lucky enough for that to be something we can change in a couple of years.
00:47:30.000 That's a generational struggle.
00:47:33.000 Something like reclaiming academia, that's decades of work to do that.
00:47:40.000 So that's my non-answer.
00:47:41.000 I'm kind of... Yeah.
00:47:42.000 I mean, so when you, you know, look at the people who you're profiling here, some of them are just absolute grifters.
00:47:49.000 I mean, as you say, one of the things that happens in the film is you show the amounts of money that had to be paid in order to get these people in the room, and they are making absolute bank.
00:47:56.000 I mean, Robin DiAngelo is making a lot of money doing this grift.
00:48:00.000 So you understand why she's doing it.
00:48:02.000 She's doing it because it's a wonderfully lucrative grift.
00:48:05.000 The question is that, you know, you having now inhabited this character, yes, it's pretend, but also, you know, you actually have to try, I assume, to think about what it would be like to be that person in order to be that person.
00:48:15.000 Where do you think the attendees at Sarai Rao are coming from?
00:48:20.000 What would motivate a human being to shell out thousands of dollars to go listen to Robin DiAngelo, not to mock her or to expose her, but to actually take her seriously?
00:48:29.000 What is the mindset of a country that takes these people seriously?
00:48:33.000 I think for those individual people, I would like to think it's as simple as a virtue signal, and they're trying to impress their liberal friends or whatever.
00:48:40.000 And I'm sure there's some of that.
00:48:42.000 But you don't sit around the table and pay money to endure that just as a virtue signal.
00:48:48.000 I think you're there because at some fundamental level, you really believe it.
00:48:53.000 And so for those people, they are true believers.
00:48:55.000 And I think that on this issue in particular, if I were to psychoanalyze, I think a lot of it does come down to guilt, and people are carrying around a lot of guilt.
00:49:07.000 Everyone carries around guilt.
00:49:09.000 And part of the problem is that, in the past, we had a way of understanding the guilt that we all feel, and you understood it in a religious context.
00:49:18.000 You understood it as a spiritual problem.
00:49:20.000 And there was also a remedy, which changes from religion to religion, but every religion has, like, a remedy for the guilt.
00:49:28.000 Like, here's what you do with that.
00:49:30.000 The religion says to you, You feel guilty.
00:49:33.000 You should, because here are bad things that you're doing.
00:49:38.000 Here's what you do about that.
00:49:39.000 Here's what you do with that.
00:49:41.000 And as we become a secular society, we don't have that message anymore.
00:49:43.000 So people still have the guilt, though.
00:49:45.000 And so they're looking around, like, why do I feel this way?
00:49:47.000 What do I do with this?
00:49:49.000 How do I explain it?
00:49:52.000 And then you have the DEI grifters, the race grifters, that come in with an answer.
00:49:56.000 And their answer is, Well, it's because you're white, because it's all racial.
00:50:02.000 And by the way, here's what you can do to atone for that.
00:50:06.000 Now, for people who aren't white, it's still a similar thing, because another thing people can walk around feeling is, you know, you feel like you're not where you want to be in life.
00:50:19.000 You feel like you haven't progressed as much as you want.
00:50:22.000 You know, we all have, to a certain extent or another, like an inferiority complex.
00:50:28.000 And so the message from the race grifters, if you're in the non-white category is, yeah, well, you know, you feel that way because there's this conspiracy against you by these people over here.
00:50:39.000 And so we're going to give you a way to channel those feelings.
00:50:42.000 And so I think that's what's happening with a lot of these people.
00:50:45.000 Yeah, that's such a great point about, you know, the kind of Misinterpretation of guilt because as you say most mainstream religions will say that there are activities that human beings participate that we all sin That's just what we are that we both have an identity problem because we're sinful creatures or creatures capable of sin But but also because we said I mean just got a daily basis.
00:51:04.000 You're gonna make mistakes.
00:51:05.000 You're gonna break the rules You're gonna do things deliberately that you know violate the rules and that's that's a sin and then you have to address yourself with God and make yourself right with your fellow human being and God in order to alleviate all that and And secular leftism says there's no such thing as sin.
00:51:17.000 Sin doesn't actually exist.
00:51:18.000 So when it comes to your own personal activity, there's what the state says is wrong, which is not quite a sin.
00:51:24.000 It's just kind of what the state says is wrong.
00:51:25.000 But there's no reason for you to ever feel guilty about the things that you do.
00:51:31.000 There's only, but that guilt has to go somewhere.
00:51:33.000 So maybe you should feel guilty about the thing that you are, but not how you identify yourself.
00:51:38.000 How about the things that are immutable?
00:51:39.000 So we moved from you feeling guilty about the things that are mutable about you, namely your actions, your attitudes toward the world, the things that you do in the world, to guilt about the things that are immutable about you, your race, your sex.
00:51:52.000 the things you were born with, right?
00:51:54.000 All of that's the stuff that you, and I guess that's a good way of avoiding the guilt
00:51:57.000 because as soon as you declare that you're guilty for having done that,
00:52:01.000 there's literally nothing more you can do.
00:52:02.000 There's no actual corrective action you can take to fix immutable guilt.
00:52:06.000 Immutable guilt is upon you.
00:52:08.000 And so the minute you acknowledge it, it's now been expiated.
00:52:10.000 And there's a certain amount of pride because in a religious context,
00:52:16.000 yes, it's about pointing you towards, yes, there are sins you're committing,
00:52:21.000 you shouldn't commit them, but there isn't, or at least there shouldn't be any pride
00:52:26.000 in the religious person of like recognizing that something is a sin.
00:52:30.000 Um, bye.
00:52:31.000 But over here, there's a certain pride for the white person who says, oh yeah, I'm guilty of being white.
00:52:40.000 The moment they acknowledge that, then they take this almost weird, sick pride in the fact that they realize how terrible they are.
00:52:49.000 And they get to feel... Now, they'll say all the time that they're not better than anybody else, but they clearly feel like they're better than the average white person for having recognized this about themselves.
00:53:01.000 And then, and you know they feel that way, because then a lot of them will turn around... And lecture the other way.
00:53:06.000 And lecture the other way, and charge money, because now they are part of the enlightened few.
00:53:13.000 So you become a licensed DEI expert in the film.
00:53:15.000 How hard was it to penetrate these circles?
00:53:18.000 Because then you actually, in the film, it's not really a giveaway, because there's a clip of it, you actually end up giving DEI advice to people.
00:53:25.000 How hard was it to penetrate this industry once you have your DEI certification, which I assume comes with some sort of Cracker Jack box or something?
00:53:33.000 Extremely easy.
00:53:33.000 Not hard at all.
00:53:36.000 It's very easy to get certified.
00:53:38.000 And once you are certified, it's very easy to get anywhere you want.
00:53:43.000 That might change now, but when we made the film, at least when we were in production, it really does open up any door that you want to open.
00:53:53.000 Probably because it just, again, it never occurred to them that anybody would be as terrible as we are and exploit it in this way.
00:54:03.000 So, I don't know, I might have ruined it for the next person who wants to come along.
00:54:06.000 You've destroyed the entire industry now, so.
00:54:08.000 There goes a multi-billion dollar industry, Matt.
00:54:10.000 First you take out the transing of the kids' industry, and now you're taking out the DEI industry, just single-handedly destroying the American economy.
00:54:16.000 It's just causing a new Great Depression.
00:54:19.000 Unbelievable, this guy.
00:54:20.000 That's the hope.
00:54:22.000 So, alright, give me your quick five-second, well, not five seconds, but give me your quick TED Talk spiel.
00:54:28.000 You're the DEI expert.
00:54:29.000 Put on the persona.
00:54:31.000 Pitch me on the DEI TED talk here.
00:54:34.000 Well, look, what I discovered with being a DEI trainer myself is that, you know, you're not saying anything, you just have to have certain buzzwords you have to know, and you just have to keep coming back to those buzzwords.
00:54:51.000 A big one is decolonize yourself, decolonize your whiteness.
00:54:56.000 I still don't know what that—honest to God, I'm not just saying I don't know what that means.
00:55:00.000 After producing this film for a year and a half and hearing it a million times, I don't know what it means.
00:55:07.000 I don't.
00:55:09.000 But it doesn't matter.
00:55:10.000 That's the great thing about it.
00:55:11.000 Just say it.
00:55:12.000 All you have to do is say it to someone.
00:55:14.000 You have to decolonize your whiteness.
00:55:18.000 If you look serious while you say it, that's it.
00:55:20.000 They're not going to ask you, you know, what do you mean by that?
00:55:22.000 Because the other thing we discovered is that the people you're talking to, they don't want to admit that they don't know what you're saying, because they feel like they should know these terms.
00:55:34.000 That's one of the tools of the woke trade here, is that they use these totally made-up terms, and they throw them into conversation, and they know the people listening aren't going to want to ask, like, what does that mean?
00:55:48.000 Because if you ask that question, it means that you've already exposed yourself as not part of the club.
00:55:53.000 So everybody just sits there, and they listen, and they nod along.
00:55:57.000 So decolonize yourself is a big one.
00:56:00.000 Whiteness is a big one.
00:56:02.000 Journey.
00:56:03.000 We're always going on a journey.
00:56:05.000 We're always on a journey somewhere.
00:56:08.000 It's not about the destination.
00:56:10.000 It's just you're on the journey.
00:56:12.000 And you just kind of circle around those themes over and over and over again.
00:56:16.000 It never ends.
00:56:18.000 Well, if you've not yet bought your ticket, folks, you really need to.
00:56:21.000 Amiracist.com to buy your tickets.
00:56:23.000 Man, it's going to be in theaters, obviously, September 13th.
00:56:25.000 Congratulations on another phenomenal piece of work.
00:56:28.000 It took an enormous amount of effort.
00:56:30.000 It's going to destroy, again, another entire swath of the left-wing economy.
00:56:34.000 So I can't wait to see what you do next.
00:56:35.000 And I'm slightly horrified to find out what the pitch will be.
00:56:38.000 Well, thanks for having me.
00:56:39.000 The Ben Shapiro Sunday Special is produced by Savannah Morris and Matt Kemp.
00:56:49.000 Associate producers are Jake Pollock and John Crick.
00:56:52.000 Production intern is Sarah Steele.
00:56:54.000 Editing is by Jeff Tomlin.
00:56:55.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Corimina.
00:56:57.000 Camera and lighting is by Zach Ginta.
00:56:59.000 Hair, makeup, and wardrobe by Fabiola Cristina.
00:57:02.000 Title graphics are by Cynthia Angulo.
00:57:04.000 Executive assistant, Kelly Carvalho.
00:57:07.000 Executive in charge of production is David Wormus.
00:57:09.000 Executive producer, Justin Siegel.
00:57:11.000 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.
00:57:13.000 The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday special is a Daily Wire production.