Bill Maher scolds left's refusal to admit racial, social progress in America: 'We've come a long way, baby'

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"Real Time" host Bill Maher closed his show Friday night by knocking liberals who refuse to acknowledge the progress on racial and social issues that's been made in America. 

Maher began by diagnosing the left with "progressophobia," a term he defined as "a brain disorder that strikes liberals and makes them incapable of recognizing progress."

"If you think America is more racist now than ever, more sexist than before women could vote and more homophobic than when b---j--s were a felony, you have ‘progressophobia’ and should adjust your mask because it's covering your eyes," Maher told his viewers. 

"The chant from gay protesters used to be ‘We’re here, we're queer, get used to it.' Well, we did. This is Pride month and it's not even a big deal anymore. Thirty days of parades and festivals celebrating a cause that was once so divisive, Ellen had to pretend to be straight."

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The HBO star celebrated legalized gay marriage nationwide and how "even half of Republicans" now support it, celebrities coming out of the closet are met with "thunderous applause" and virtually every major company in America commemorates Pride month. 

"And it's not just LGBT issues. Not that long ago, I knew people who went to prison for growing pot. And today, you can legally smoke it for fun in 43% of the country," Maher explained. "Even something like bullying: It still happens but being outwardly cruel to people who are different is no longer acceptable. That's progress. And acknowledging progress isn't saying ‘We’re done,' or ‘We don’t need more.' And being gloomier doesn't make you a better person." 

Maher pointed out how only "4%" of Americans approved of interracial marriage in 1958 and how Gallup stopped polling the question in 2013 since "87%" of the population supports it, calling it a "sea change" from his childhood. He cited stats of companies that show 47-55% of their employees are people of color, joking that they're "desperate to look like their TV commercials." 

He also invoked the recent "Friends" reunion special and how it "looked weird" because "if you even suggested a show today about six people, all of whom were straight and White, the network would laugh you out of the room and then cancel you on Twitter."

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"And yet there's a recurrent theme on the far-left that things have never been worse! Kevin Hart expressed a view many hold when he told The New York Times, ‘You’re witnessing White power and White privilege at an all-time high.'" Maher said. 

"This is one of the big problems with wokeness," he continued, "that what you say doesn't have to make sense or jive with the facts or even be challenged lest the challenge be conflated with racism.' 

"This is one of the big problems with wokeness, that what you say doesn't have to make sense or jive with the facts – or even be challenged lest the challenge be conflated with racism.' 

— Bill Maher

"But saying that White power and privilege is at an all-time high is just ridiculous. Higher than a century ago, the year of the Tulsa Race Massacre? Higher than the years when the KKK rode unchecked and Jim Crow went unchallenged? Higher than the 1960s when The Supremes and Willie Mays still couldn't stay at the same hotel as the White people they were working with? Higher than during slavery?"

The "Real Time" host acknowledged that racism "is still with us," but also stressed that racism "is simply no longer everywhere," pointing to how the Minneapolis police didn't support Derek Chauvin "and that never used to happen."

"The low point of race relations wasn't Kim Kardashian wearing cornrows, even though it happened on Snapchat and George Wallace standing in a doorway didn't. Because here's the thing, kids: There actually was a world before you got here," Maher scolded young people. "We date human events A.D. and B.C., but we need a new marker for Millennials and Gen-Z, "B.Y." - "Before You."

"Here's the thing, kids: There actually was a world before you got here."

— Bill Maher

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"There are a helluva a lot of Americans trying really hard these days to embrace a new spirit of inclusion and self-reflection, and this progressive allergy to acknowledging societal advances is self-defeating because progress and hope that we can achieve it is the product we're selling and having a warped view of reality leads to policies that are warped," Maher continued. "Black-only dorms and graduation ceremonies, a growing belief that Whiteness as a malady and White people as irredeemable, giving up on a colorblind society -- only if you believe we've made no progress does any of that make sense." 

He added, "It's not a sin, and it's certainly not inaccurate, to say we've come a long way, baby. Not mission accomplished, just a long way."