In an interview that spanned nearly the duration of the timeslot (minus the commercials), CNN Prime Time host Chris “Fredo” Cuomo and HBO’s Bill Maher had a conversation that covered everything from former President Trump, to “wokeness,” to Dave Chappelle. But one of the more impactful topics was their back and forth on Critical Race Theory. There, Maher schooled Cuomo on how the racist ideology was applied in classrooms: separating students based on race and the whites called “oppressors.”
After coming back from a commercial, Fredo lashed out at parents opposed to CRT and declared them too stupid to understand even what the letters in the acronym stood for:
You can explain it away as ignorance of what CRT is. Here's my problem with it, and I want to get your take. CRT means nothing to anybody. They don't know what the acronym stands for. It's really not taught anywhere.
“Here's the problem. They still get to vote for you. And feel overwhelms facts all the time in elections,” he added.
But Maher wasn’t having it and immediately called Fredo out. “And it's not a phantom either. That there's something going on in the schools that never went on before,” he noted, describing how he’s read numerous “accounts from parents, from educators” about what was going on in schools across the country.
After noting that no one was against teaching an honest assessment of the Civil War and slavery, Maher argued, “That's different than teaching that racism is the essence of America. That's what people get upset about, or involving children who are probably not old enough or sophisticated enough to understand this very complicated issue with a very complicated history.”
CRT being forced on children was the crux of the issue for Maher, essentially destroying their innocence by making them think they or their classmates are racist. “Kids are taught and sometimes separated into groups, oppressor and oppressed. Again, does a kid even know what those words mean? Would they gravitate toward that if you hadn't told them,” he asked.
Maher deduced that the problem with the far-left was that they’re “afraid” to admit that things had gotten better since the Civil Rights Movement (Click “expand”):
I mean, you're taking something that was getting better, race relations in America, and we -- I think everyone recognizes, everyone right-thinking, in my view, that still a lot of work needs to be done. Remedial efforts need to be taken still. Racism is part of America.
But I did a thing one night about progressophobia which is a term Stephen Pinker coined which means somehow liberals got afraid to acknowledge progress. You know, it's two thoughts in your head at the same time. You can acknowledge that we have made great progress on all the social issues. And yet there is still more work to be done. We're not saying mission accomplished. We're saying let's live in the year we're living in.
You can't come up with good solutions unless you're realistic about what the problem is. I mean, it was only like 10 or 20 years ago that no state in America would vote for gay marriage. I mean, it was on the ballot like 35 times. Now it's the law of the land and no one is against it.
Ignoring how he had just claimed CRT wasn’t “really…taught anywhere,” Fredo pushed back, asserting CRT was just teaching kids the truth and how to spot systemic racism. To which Maher denounced that as “nuts” (Click “expand”):
CUOMO: And the pushback becomes, “well, it's just the truth, we're just telling them the truth, is that racism continues, it's systemic, it's in everything around us, but you have to be taught where it is everywhere because that's how we remedy it. And otherwise you're just hiding from the truth.”
MAHER: That's nuts. It's just silly. It's just virtue signaling.
CUOMO: Now, here's the problem. You say that all the time. Why aren't you concerned that whether it's HBO or whoever owns them in that minute, or your audience or some group, comes and says, Maher said too much, he's got to go. Why aren’t you afraid of that?
MAHER: [Laughter] They do it every week. I tape the show Friday.
This all essentially tied into their earlier conversation about “wokeness,” where Maher chastised the Democratic Party for going crazy:
I keep saying this to the Democratic Party. The reason why you are so toxic is because you have become the party of no common sense. And people see this on their news feeds. I mean, you were saying to me in the break, people mostly go on with their lives, they do, but they see things on their phone or their Facebook page, people pass things around and it's a constant drip, drip, drip of, “oh, these people are nuts.”
Chris Cuomo’s lies about Critical Race Theory not being applied in schools was made possible because of lucrative sponsorships from Amazon and UPS. Their contact information is linked so you can tell them about the biased news they fund.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time
November 17, 2021
9:17:26 p.m. Eastern(…)
CHRIS CUOMO: A quick question. Woke. The response from the people that you put it on will say, no, woke is aware and inclusive and there is no cancel culture, it's just accountability, these are not bad things, they are good things. Disagree?
BILL MAHER: Well, woke, yes, I mean, I don't remember the day the term was born, although I hear AOC says only old people use it now. Well, you gave it to us, like five years ago. So, sorry we didn't get the memo. Right away that's such a high school thing, we're not using that anymore. We all wear pink on Wednesdays.
Okay, whatever term you want, I don't care. Again, I just got used to this one. And yes, in its best sense, if we're talking about being aware of things that we always should have been aware of more, reckonings that we've had with sexual malfeasance, with racial injustice, that's all a good thing. But there's a reason why the term "Woke" has come to signify going too far and doing things that don't make sense.
I keep saying this to the Democratic Party. The reason why you are so toxic is because you have become the party of no common sense. And people see this on their news feeds. I mean, you were saying to me in the break, people mostly go on with their lives, they do, but they see things on their phone or their Facebook page, people pass things around and it's a constant drip, drip, drip of, “oh, these people are nuts.”
(…)
9:26:27 p.m. Eastern
CUOMO: We were talking about schools, and about boy, did that resonate as an issue in Virginia, the Democrats didn't see it coming. You can explain it away as ignorance of what CRT is. Here's my problem with it, and I want to get your take. CRT means nothing to anybody. They don't know what the acronym stands for. It's really not taught anywhere.
MAHER: You're not even saying the three words it stands for and people are already going, “CRT?”
CUOMO: “I don't like it, I don't want it.”
MAHER: Well, let’s say what those words are.
CUOMO: Critical Race Theory.
MAHER: Yeah.
CUOMO: And the people on the left will mock the ignorance. “They're too stupid to know.” Here's the problem. They still get to vote for you. And feel overwhelms facts all the time in elections. That's nothing new. People vote on feel.
MAHER: And it's not a phantom either. That there's something going on in the schools that never went on before. Now, I'm not in schools, I have no interaction with children what so ever. But I do understand this issue because I read accounts from parents, from educators, from people -- and this is all over the country.
If -- when you say Critical Race Theory, again, this is the binary situation we always find ourselves in in this country. If you say that on MSNBC, people think that's a great thing because they're finally teaching an honest history of racism in this country, which I know no one who is against that.
I'm certainly not against that. I think -- you know, I remember what my education was with American history. We learned about the Civil War. I mean, they mentioned racism, we understood slavery and Lincoln and blah blah blah. But they didn't really go into it any more than Gone with the Wind goes into it. It was there but you didn't feel it viscerally. Now we're doing that and I think that's a good thing, people should understand that.
That's different than teaching that racism is the essence of America. That's what people get upset about, or involving children who are probably not old enough or sophisticated enough to understand this very complicated issue with a very complicated history.
CUOMO: So, it's that you have families – we saw this resonate in Virginia. And I have people on all the time who reject this premise – but we just saw it play out so it must be real to a lot of people – which is you want to make white kids feel badly about what happened before them and that their lives should be a function of making up for it. And I don't want that put on my kid.
MAHER: Yes. People are -- Kids are taught and sometimes separated into groups, oppressor and oppressed. Again, does a kid even know what those words mean? Would they gravitate toward that if you hadn't told them?
I mean, you're taking something that was getting better, race relations in America, and we -- I think everyone recognizes, everyone right-thinking, in my view, that still a lot of work needs to be done. Remedial efforts need to be taken still. Racism is part of America.
But I did a thing one night about progressophobia which is a term Stephen Pinker coined which means somehow liberals got afraid to acknowledge progress. You know, it's two thoughts in your head at the same time. You can acknowledge that we have made great progress on all the social issues. And yet there is still more work to be done. We're not saying mission accomplished. We're saying let's live in the year we're living in.
You can't come up with good solutions unless you're realistic about what the problem is. I mean, it was only like 10 or 20 years ago that no state in America would vote for gay marriage. I mean, it was on the ballot like 35 times. Now it's the law of the land and no one is against it. I mean, when I was a kid, I grew up in New Jersey, which is not a southern state, and it was a completely white town. Now a vast majority of Americans want to live in a racially diverse neighborhood. That is a sea change just in my lifetime.
Again, not mission accomplished, but can we just acknowledge how far we've come and where we are right now.
CUOMO: And the pushback becomes, “well, it's just the truth, we're just telling them the truth, is that racism continues, it's systemic, it's in everything around us, but you have to be taught where it is everywhere because that's how we remedy it. And otherwise you're just hiding from the truth.”
MAHER: That's nuts. It's just silly. It's just virtue signaling.
CUOMO: Now, here's the problem. You say that all the time. Why aren't you concerned that whether it's HBO or whoever owns them in that minute, or your audience or some group, comes and says, Maher said too much, he's got to go. Why aren’t you afraid of that?
MAHER: [Laughter] They do it every week. I tape the show Friday.
CUOMO: That's called Tuesday.
MAHER: Exactly. Friday night, on Saturday some people who haven't seen the show yet say to me, “how did the show go?” I always say, “if I haven't been canceled today, it went fantastic, that it was a giant success.”
CUOMO: But you don't change.
MAHER: No. They come after me every week for something, both sides, which I think is great.
CUOMO: Maybe that's what saves you, that you have both sides coming after you.
MAHER: And that's fairly new, because -- not because I've changed. My politics have not changed. I'm an old school liberal. We were talking about the race issue. They changed, not me. I was the old, we should be moving toward a color-blind society where we don't see race. That's the old way to look at it. I think that's still the good way to look at it. That’s how we win. When it doesn’t matter what your race is; the quality of your character, not the color of your skin. That's not woke-ism. Woke-ism is we have to see it everywhere all the time. That’s different, I don’t know if that make is better.
But I'm – for the first time, when I’m on the road now playing to very often to a politically mixed audience. That never happened, ever. And I don't think it happens hardly anywhere else in America.
(…)
