Bill Maher Claims Murderer of George Floyd ‘Was Not Backed Up By His Fellow Officers’ in Rant Slamming Liberals
Comic and TV host Bill Maher made the claim that Derek Chauvin — who murdered George Floyd just over a year ago and was convicted of the crime in April — “was not backed up by his fellow officers.”
On Friday night’s edition of HBO’s Real Time, Maher devoted the end of his “New Rules” segment to a rant deriding liberals as suffering from what he called “Progressophobia” — a fear of admitting that progress has been made in America.
The rant itself was typical of the form, and typical of Maher’s penchant for mocking liberals — especially on issues of racism. But there were a couple of things that stood out.
One was his choice to use comedian Kevin Hart as an example, by reading a quote that Hart gave to The New York Times.
“Saying ‘You’re witnessing white power and white privilege at an all-time high’ is just ridiculous,” Maher told his audience.
What he didn’t tell them is that Mr. Hart made the remark within days of Mr. Floyd’s murder, as part of a lengthy response to a question about that murder:
You’ve always stayed away from political material in your comedy. Does a situation like this make you reconsider that approach?
No. This isn’t a laughing matter for me. This isn’t something that I choose to make material out of. This is serious. My voice has to be used correctly. We’re talking about a 400-year problem. You’re talking about something that doesn’t want to go away, and people keep treating it as if it’s nonexistent. I don’t understand why everybody is so afraid to address the elephant in the room. It’s shocking to me. You’re witnessing white power and white privilege at an all-time high. For those who say they don’t understand that, or don’t see it, or are confused as to what that means, I’m going to say you’re a part of the problem.
That horrific murder, seen over and over again by tens or hundreds of millions of people, came up again later in Maher’s rant, right after he declared that being racist is “un-hip.”
“Even Derek Chauvin was not backed up by his fellow officers, and that never used to happen,” Maher said.
He may have been referring to testimony and interviews from law enforcement sources after the fact, but as anyone who has watched the video footage of the murder, the murderer was very much backed up by his fellow officers on the scene.
For people who still live in terror of meeting a fate similar to that of Mr. Floyd and countless others, Maher’s view of “progress” is likely crowded out by that of the late Malcolm X, who said “If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there’s no progress. If you pull it all the way out that’s not progress.”
Watch the clip above via HBO.
