Bill Maher rails against critical race theory, argues it’s just ‘virtue-signaling’

Comedian Bill Maher railed against critical race theory and woke Democrats in a far-reaching interview with Chris Cuomo Wednesday night — condemning the controversial education movement as “just virtue-signaling” and accusing liberals of being “afraid to acknowledge progress.”

“It’s just something going on in the schools that never went on before,” Maher said on CNN’s Prime Time with Chris Cuomo.

The “Real Time” host said he isn’t against “finally teaching an honest history of racism” in American schools but CRT — which suggests that America is inherently racist — has gone too far.

“I think, 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… 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, this really. Now we’re doing that, and I think that’s a good thing. People should understand that,” Maher said.

“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.”

He said some children in parts of the country are being taught — and sometimes separated into groups — related to oppressor and oppressed, adding: “Does a kid even know what those words mean? Would they gravitate toward that if you hadn’t told them?”

Maher argued the concept of teaching that racism is everywhere because that’s how it can be remedied — otherwise people are just hiding from the truth — “is just silly, it’s just virtue-signaling.”

Maher acknowledged a lot of work still needed to be done, but argued race relations in America “was getting better.”

He also spoke about “progressophobia,” which he said essentially means liberals have become “afraid to acknowledge progress.”

“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 just saying, ‘Let’s live in the year we’re living in’,” he said.

“When I was 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,” he argued.

“Again, not mission accomplished, but can we just acknowledge how far we’ve come, and where we are right now?”