Reflections on *Am I Racist?*

I saw Matt Walsh’s new Am I Racist? this weekend. Overall, hilarious and insightful. I often disagree with Walsh, but when he’s funny, he’s right. The racist cult of “anti-racism” really does aspire to become our society’s official religion — a body of bizarre dogmas that everyone either (a) believes, or (b) pretends to believe out of fear.

My main thoughts on the documentary:

1. The movie’s DEI experts exemplify the Biblical adage, “There are those who would strain out a gnat, but at the same time swallow a camel.” They fret over the correct way to smile at blacks, yet never reflect on their habitual explicit expressions of antipathy toward whites.

2. Walsh’s “man on the street” interviews, though amusing, prove very little. You can talk to endless randos until one of them tells you what you want to hear. Sure, he finds a bunch of tolerant, broad-minded fellows in a biker bar. But how many biker bars did he have to visit to get the footage he wanted?

3. Walsh’s interviews with leading “anti-racists,” in contrast, prove much. Robin DiAngelo, arguably the world’s top anti-racist author, talked with Walsh at length. So did multiple other elite experts and journalists. They all come across as dogmatic midwits.

4. Yes, Walsh was able to lemon-pick the footage that best showcased the top anti-racists’ dogmatic midwittedness. But if you pay attention, they give absurd answers to softball questions. For example, Walsh gives DiAngelo a hypothetical where a black co-worker criticizes her for “over-smiling” one day, and “under-smiling” the next. The sensible response would be, “The guy sounds hypersensitive, so I’ll start avoiding him.” But instead she accepts the co-worker’s behavior as justified and recommends trying to placate him with earnest groveling.

5. If I were a DEI defender, here’s how I’d respond to Walsh’s film. “You go out of your way to show that most white people are racially tolerant. You repeatedly mock the idea of ‘systemic racism.’ But how then do you explain the poor life outcomes of blacks and Hispanics in American society? The whole idea of systemic racism is that you can have ‘racism without racists.’ Everyone is well-meaning, yet the outcome remains unfair. Aren’t you painting yourself into a corner where you’re forced to say, ‘Blacks and Hispanics are genetically inferior’?”

6. If I were Walsh, I’d give the following reply. First:

   1. The DEI defender neglects the possibility that culture drives racial gaps. Many black Americans speak with the distinctive accent and diction sometimes known as “ebonics,” but the reason is neither racism nor genetics. How do we know? Because they only speak ebonics if they grow up in neighborhoods where ebonics prevails. The same goes for all accents: They transcend genetics, and require zero “oppression” to arise and survive. Instead, accents are driven by the universal human tendency to locally conform.

   2. There’s nothing circular about cultural explanations of behavior. When someone asks, “Why do Bostonians speak with a Boston accent?” the responsive, correct answer is: “Because they grow up in areas where other people have that accent.” Yes, linguists can flesh out the history of the accent, but “I talk like this because I’m from Southie” tells us what we need to know.

   3. There’s nothing special about accents; the universal human tendency to locally conform potentially explains group differences in educational performance, career success, family structure, criminality, religion, politics, and more. If you grow up in a neighborhood where people value good grades, tech jobs, late marriage, low machismo, agnosticism, and the Democratic Party, you will probably value them, too. If you grow up in a neighborhood where people value sassing teachers, street hustling, single motherhood, high machismo, old-time Christianity, and the Democratic Party, you will probably value them, too.

   4. Isn’t this “victim blaming”? The answer hinges depends on your underlying moral theory. Almost everyone who grows up Amish stays Amish. Does that make Amish children victims? Maybe their way of life is fine for them, so no finger-pointing is in order. If they are victims, who are the victimizers? Their parents? A society that fails to “do enough” to help the Amish? You could even blame individual Amish for failing to be non-conformist enough to critically analyze and reject the culture they grew up in.

   5. The same goes for cultural explanations of poor life outcomes for blacks. You can embrace blackness — and scoff at mainstream American society’s prioritization of educational and career success, two-parent families, low machismo, and so on. You could blame black parents who fail to teach their children better values. You could blame American society for not doing enough to help blacks. Or you could blame individual blacks for failing to be non-conformist enough to critically analyze and reject the culture they grew up in.

7. Second, we should calmly consider genetic explanations of group differences in life outcomes.

   1. The phrase “genetically inferior” is deliberately crafted to intimidate anyone who wants to actually look at the evidence. If someone tells me my kids lack the genes to be professional football players, hissing, “So my kids are genetically inferior?!” is a breach of epistemic etiquette. The truth-seeking reaction is rather: “Maybe, what’s the evidence?”

   2. There is overwhelming evidence from twin and adoption research that genetics explains a lot about individual differences. This doesn’t logically imply that genetics also explains group differences, but it raises the probability.

   3. There is also overwhelming evidence from international adoption that growing up in the Third World causes lasting physical and cognitive harm. This doesn’t logically imply that severe childhood deprivation explains intra-national outcomes within the First World, but it raises the probability.

   4. Yes, Nazis used genetics to argue for mass murder: You have Jewish blood, so you’re an enemy of Germany. But Communists used environment to argue for mass murder: You were raised as a kulak, so you’re an enemy of the state. The right inference is not that some explanations are evil, but that totalitarians are evil. Fanatics in search of rationalizations for mass murder never fail to find what they’re looking for.

8. The question, “Am I racist?” matters because unfairness is baked into the definition of racism. Suppose you discover that racism is not an important cause of worse life outcomes for blacks and Hispanics. That’s hardly a reason to start mistreating them. Conversely, the fact that you oppose unfair treatment of blacks and Hispanics is hardly a reason to overstate the magnitude of the effect of racism on their lives. Indeed, anyone who cares about blacks and Hispanics should be glad to discover that racism barely harms them.

9. The “anti-racism experts” that Walsh interviewed frankly seemed too stupid to invoke Plato’s Noble Lie. But I suspect that their smartest apologists think something along the lines of: “Yes, racism barely matters these days. But guilt is the best motivator we’ve got. If most Americans accepted the cultural explanation for group differences — or, heaven forfend, the genetic explanation — we’ll stop trying to help the unfortunate.”

10. The Effective Altruist reply to the alleged Noble Lie: Once we stop obsessing over racism, we can and probably will refocus on race-blind poverty. Which is precisely what we should do.

11. But I prefer a more meritocratic reply to the alleged Noble Lie. Namely: Why do you automatically take the side of “the unfortunate”? If people don’t want to give money to total strangers, what makes you so sure that government should force them to do so?

12. One thing that EAs, meritocrats, and all people of good will should be able to agree on: “Anti-racists” have been libeling and slandering innocent people as “racists” for decades. They aren’t the worst racists in the world, but they have long been the most verbose. They owe the world a massive apology.