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Robin DiAngelo Freaks Out Over ‘Am I Racist?’ And It’s Glorious
Today is the day that my new film “Am I Racist?” releases in theaters nationwide. This is the most significant moment in my own career personally, and a seminal achievement for all of the incredible people who worked on our film — starting with our director Justin Folk, our producers Sean Hampton, Brian Hoffman, Benyam Capel, and Dallas Sonnier. And of course The Daily Wire and the executive team — Jeremy Boreing, Caleb Robinson, and Jon Lewis, along with Ben Shapiro, who is an executive producer on the film and one of the first people to see the original cut and give us notes. This film would not be what it is now without every person that I listed, and many others that I haven’t listed. I’m not going to read through the whole list. You’ll have to watch the movie and stick around for the credits for that. And by the way: you should stick around for the credits. This isn’t a Marvel movie but we do have our own little post-credit scene you don’t want to miss.
Anyway, the point is that this film was incredibly ambitious from the start. We knew what we wanted to do and what sort of movie we wanted to make, but we had no idea if we could pull it off, especially given my increased profile and notoriety from the success of “What Is A Woman?” Some day I can tell the whole story of how exactly we managed to navigate all of the land mines and create the film that you can now watch in a theater near you. I will say that it took significantly longer than I thought, and was even more difficult than I imagined it would be.
Am I Racist? Is In Theaters NOW — Get Your Tickets Here!
When we finished filming, finally, about a year after we shot our first scene, the odyssey had only just begun. Now came time to take this unwieldy, mammoth of a thing, with all of its dozens of hours of raw footage, and shape it into a cinematic narrative. Fortunately, we have a brilliant artist for a director in Marshall Lee, who made this painful process much easier than it had any right to be. We also have Justin Folk, our director, who knows how to comb through footage and find the story. We also spent many cumulative hours in the edit bay and in screening rooms with Jeremy, discussing and debating every last detail of this thing. It was a painstaking and sometimes necessarily painful creative collaboration, but that’s what’s required to make something great. And none of us were going to settle for anything less than great — something we can all be proud of.
Sadly, not everyone involved in this film is proud of it, apparently. Some of my co-stars — the people I shared the screen with — have demonstrated some embarrassment about their role in the movie. In fact, quite tragically, four of the DEI experts I interviewed or featured in the film have deleted their Twitter accounts. A number of them have also denounced the movie in recent days. Kate Slater, the anti-racist educator now famous for discussing the racial implications of Disney princesses, posted on Instagram this week that the movie is a “piece of s***” and she is “going off the radar” to avoid criticism that may arise from it. Meanwhile, one of the hosts of Race to Dinner — Saira Rao — who is featured in one of the pivotal scenes of the film, reportedly condemned the movie during a Race to Dinner digital book club event. She warned people not to see it, calling it a “fascist Nazi white supremacy film.” She claimed that she was “conned” into being in the film. As a con artist herself, of course, she knows a lot about being conned. Though apparently not enough to avoid it happening to her. If we did con her — which of course we did not, for the record. We simply gave her an opportunity to appear in our documentary about anti-racism. An opportunity she was eager to take advantage of. And we did, in fact, make a documentary about anti-racism. No conning involved. I mean, how could Saira Rao accuse me of being a con artist? Who does Saira Rao think I am? Saira Rao?
WATCH: THE MATT WALSH SHOW
Finally, just yesterday, Robin DiAngelo issued a statement. It is lengthy. It is also everything that you’d want a statement from Robin DiAngelo to be. Posted to her website on Thursday, her statement is titled: “About That Film…” Here’s what she says, in part:
Back in 2023, I was contacted by a group who claimed to be making a documentary film called Shades of Justice, about efforts to address racism in the United States. They planned to interview anti-racist activists, authors and thought leaders in service of supporting the cause of racial equity. They offered me between $10-20,000 for an interview. I said let’s meet in the middle with $15,000 and agreed to participate (I have since donated that sum to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund).
Side note: yes, Shades of Justice is one of the organizational names that we used. It doesn’t really mean anything but we figured it’s the kind of meaningless name that would resonate with the woke crowd. And it did. I will also say that I appreciate Robin’s generosity in “meeting in the middle” with $15,000. She really gave us a deal, you see. It was a bargain. Only 15 grand to sit down for an interview. She continues:
When I arrived for the interview, a few things felt off. The grips would not make eye contact with me and the interviewer, who was introduced as “Matt,” appeared to be wearing an ill-fitting wig.
Now, let’s stop here again, Robin. First of all, the wig fit very well. That was a nice wig — an authentic wig. It was made from real human hair. I harvested the hair myself from a homeless guy in exchange for a Snickers bar and a bottle of Jack Daniels. Second, more to the point, you claim that you noticed I was wearing a wig the moment you sat down — and yet you still did the interview? In your version of events, the crew was nervous and shifty (which they weren’t), and I was sitting there in my ill-fitting wig, and things felt off. Yet, Robin, you still sat there and talked to me on camera for two hours. Whose fault is that? If what you say is true, then we can only conclude that you were willing to do anything just for the money. Which is basically the whole point of the movie. Thank you for emphasizing it for us.
Reading on:
Matt presented himself as someone new to antiracist work and seemed earnest, and his questions did not come across as adversarial. By the end, however, things got weird. Matt asked what I thought about reparations for Black Americans. I said that I agreed with reparations but that it was not my area of expertise. He then pulled up a chair and invited a Black crew-member who went by “Ben” to sit with us, took out his wallet and handed Ben some cash. He said that if I believed in reparations, I should also give Ben cash. While some Black people have asked white people to engage in reparations by giving directly to individuals, reparations are generally understood as a systemic approach to past and current injustice. The way Matt set this up felt intended to put Ben and I on the spot. Because Matt was pushing this on us, I expressed my discomfort and checked in with Ben, to be sure he was okay with receiving cash in this way. Ben reassured me that he was, so I went to my wallet and handed him my cash and the interview ended.
So let’s back up here and review, again, your version of events, Robin. You walked into the room to do an interview with an organization you knew very little about. Things felt off. The interviewer was wearing a strange wig. Then the interviewer, in this wig, forces a black man to sit down and receive cash reparations. You felt like the whole thing was a setup and intended to put you on the spot… But you still paid the reparations. Even despite all of that, you still paid. That’s your defense. Now, as for me, I don’t want to give spoilers away for the film. I don’t care how many times some of these spoilers are reported by the media. I refuse, on principle, to officially confirm the legitimacy of any of the spoilers. Everyone will have to go to the theater this weekend to watch “Am I Racist?” for themselves. But if what you say is true, then it would seem to make you not only a fool but a money-grubbing grifter. Which, again, is sort of the point of the film.
I will say that your assumption that my black friend Ben was manipulated into taking part in this alleged reparations exercise is quite demeaning and infantilizing to him. No great shock coming from the woman who demeans and infantilizes black people for a living. If this reparations thing actually did happen — as you claim — how do you know Ben was not a willing participant? In fact, how do you know that he wasn’t forcing me to do it? Maybe I’m the innocent victim in all of this. Have you thought about that, Robin?
Continuing on:
After reviewing the sequence of events and discussing it with colleagues, I realized that they had lied about their agenda and I had been played. I spread the word on my networks. Unfortunately, last month I started receiving hateful and misogynistic emails. Some referenced the Daily Wire (Ben Shapiro’s website), which announced that the film is indeed being released. It is not titled Shades of Justice nor is it meant to support the anti-racist cause. It is a Borat-style mockumentary titled Am I Racist? and designed to humiliate and discredit anti-racist educators and activists.
Their deception was carefully planned and well-funded… The interviewer was in fact, Matt Walsh, a far-right provocateur backed by Shapiro and DailyWire+ (and yes, wearing a wig)… Am I A Racist? is not only about me and I was not the only one who fell for their deception. Sadly, many of those being mocked are women of Color. I have not seen the film nor do I plan to watch it, so I don’t know what they have used of my interview or how they have edited it, but if you see clips or the full film, consider the source: Matt Walsh. So, who is Matt Walsh and what is his – and his backers’ – agenda? Luckily for us, he has clearly answered that question, without shame, time and time again.
She then goes on to quote the Southern Poverty Law Center’s hit piece on me. They say that I’m a white supremacist shock jock, etc. All in all, much of what she says about me, The Daily Wire, and our film is not true. Especially when she claims that our film was well funded. In fact, this was a very low-budget operation — at least by Hollywood standards. Borat — which she compares our film to — had a budget of around $18 million 20 years ago. Our budget was about 16% of that. From a quality perspective, the film does look much more expensive than that. Which is maybe what Robin DiAngelo was picking up on. And I appreciate the compliment.
She is completely correct about one thing. She says our intentions are to humiliate and discredit anti-racist educators and activists. On that point, she could not be more right. That is in fact our agenda with this film. We have other things we want to do, too. We want to entertain you. We want to make you laugh. We want to prove that conservatives can successfully make a film like this. The kind of film that, until now, only liberals like Sacha Baron Cohen have pulled off, or even attempted. We have many things we wish to achieve with this movie. But most of all, yes, we want to expose the so-called “anti-racist” movement. We want to humiliate and discredit these grifters. Or, I should say, we want to give them an opportunity to humiliate and discredit themselves. And that is an opportunity that Robin DiAngelo took full advantage of. She only has herself to blame. And you can see it for yourself, right now, in theaters. You really don’t want to miss it.
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