HBO’s “Real Time” host Bill Maher said of protesters at the University of Missouri, “sometimes they looked like the Chinese Army” and denounced Yale’s Halloween costume protesters as “little monsters” on Friday.
Maher began by stating, that some of what’s going on on college campuses is good, and some is bad, and that “denying racism is the new racism. And that’s progress that that’s where we are. But it still must be infuriating to black people in America, because there is still so much racism, when they hear the Republican Party’s official position, which is, it’s over. Racism is over, it’s all in your head.”
In reference to the University of Missouri, Maher stated the university’s president was “a clueless white guy” but “not a war criminal.” After talking about the incidents that sparked the protests, Maher said that while they were wrong, “this is America. There’s racism in it. The question I’m asking is, do we purge even clueless people from their jobs. Is that where we are with the battle against racism? Maybe the answer’s yes.”
Maher added of the protesters “they turned on the media, and said it was a media-free zone. You know, they characterized themselves as the protesters in Tienanmen Square, but sometimes they looked like the Chinese Army. I mean, their right to never be offended is not — it does not supersede the First Amendment.”
After the discussion turned to Yale, after quoting from an op-ed that said students were losing sleep, not going to class, skipping meals, and not doing homework as a result of the controversy, Maher incredulously asked, “About an email over a Halloween costume that doesn’t even exist? Over an email? Who raised these little monsters?”
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