As I drove to the AMC theater in Danvers, Mass., my phone kept peppering me with the same plaintive question: “Am I Racist?”

It was startling the first time it happened, and for a second, I wanted to reassure my phone that no, consumer electronic devices can’t be racist. But the phone wasn’t really asking.

Rather, it was reminding me that I had tickets for the latest movie by Matt Walsh, a conservative podcaster and provocateur who is probably most famous for his film “What Is a Woman?” That movie apparently did well enough to justify releasing the new one onto about 1,500 screens this month. It was No. 4 at the box office (albeit a distant fourth in a very slow week), which is why I was going to see it.

While you might not like this suggestion, you should do the same.

I’m not promising you’ll enjoy the movie. If you’re on the liberal-to-progressive side, you will think it is simplistic and unfair, which, yes, obviously.

The movie’s conceit is that Walsh is concerned he is racist and trying to “do the work.” (This column will contain spoilers, starting with: He is not sincere.) If you don’t like the people he’s lampooning, it’s easy to convince yourself that he’s revealing something deep and important, just as I’ve heard progressives argue that “Borat” movies were laying bare the hateful underbelly of America. But what Walsh is actually revealing is two not-very-surprising realities of human nature: First, that every group has an awful fringe, and it’s easy to make that group look bad if only the fringe’s worst moments survive the cutting-room floor. Second, that the human instinct for avoiding confrontation is exploitable if you’re sufficiently willing to violate the social contract.

At every point, his targets are visibly uncomfortable with his exaggerated behavior and strange ideas. But our instinct for avoiding confrontation is almost overwhelming, which both leaves us vulnerable to manipulation and keeps us from killing each other over trivia. If possible, we try to sidestep people who misbehave, not change them.

That’s especially true among America’s genteel upper middle class, who have an unusual ability to engineer their lives away from people who are annoying, antisocial or just plain weird. Many of the most embarrassing moments come in situations — small groups in small rooms — where it’s hard to get up and leave without causing a scene.

When progressive activist Saira Rao monologues about the awfulness of White women, to a group of White women at one of her “Race to Dinner” event, which reportedly cost up to $5,000 to stage, the faces of the guests foreshadow those of Walsh’s workshop participants: the frozen anxiety of someone witnessing a social offense and unwilling to return it in kind.

That’s also what you see on the face of celebrity diversity consultant Robin DiAngelo when a bewigged Walsh gives all his cash to a Black producer as “reparations” and invites DiAngelo to do the same. DiAngelo obviously thinks this is a bad idea, but even though she would later release a statement saying that the whole setup felt off, she clearly couldn’t figure out how to say no without pointing out that Walsh was behaving inappropriately. I dropped my head into my hands as DiAngelo went scurrying for her wallet, though I confess, I also laughed. Because you can’t help think of how many times DiAngelo has been paid for her advice on how White people ought to interact with people of color. And some of that advice is only slightly less bizarre and patronizing than suggesting we haul out our wallets and tip them $20.

DiAngelo and Rao and a number of others gained money and fame during the “Great Awokening” because decent people, genuinely concerned about America’s racial divides, were too polite to point out that they sounded like lunatics. Those well-intentioned Americans had their social instincts hacked, the machinery diverted into a continuous loop of unproductive navel-gazing, instead of the racial justice they were trying to achieve. That’s what left them vulnerable when Matt Walsh showed up to exploit the same bug.