Emmy Award-winning actor Bryan Cranston butted heads with comedian Bill Maher this weekend when the two locked horns over what Cranston considers the "essential" teaching of critical race theory.
The debate took place on Maher's podcast Club Random after the comedian argued that figures such as former Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson should not be canceled because they owned slaves.
POLICE OFFICER RESIGNS AFTER SUPERIORS SUSPEND HIM FOR TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE BELIEFS
Cranston disagreed emphatically.
"It's 400 f***ing years that we've dealt with this, and our country still has not taken responsibility or accountability," he said.
Maher pursued the issue and asked what people need to assume responsibility for.
"For the history of the systemic racism that’s in this country," the actor said. "Well, I mean, for one thing, critical race theory, I think, is essential to be teaching."
The comedian recognized that there are issues regarding racism in America's history that are of great importance, but he made his opposition to critical race theory clear.
Critical race theory and other closely related ideologies hold that the United States is inherently racist and that skin color is used to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between white and nonwhite people. Critics claim it delegates all white people to the role of oppressors and all people of color to victims.
"Critical race theory, I mean, it's just one of these catch-all terms," according to Maher. "If you mean we should honestly teach our past, of course; if you mean more what the 1619 book says, which is that it's just the essence of America and that we are irredeemable, that's just wrong."
"I agree with that," Cranston said before maintaining that the nation needs to "teach our past" and "be honest."
"Most schools are doing that," Maher said.
"In Florida, they want to do away with critical race theory, and a lot of other states," according to Cranston.
"Because sometimes it veers off into things that are really not appropriate in schools," Maher retorted. "Introducing ideas about race that are inappropriate for kids that age who can't understand it ... telling 5-year-olds that you're either an oppressor or someone who was oppressed."
Cranston conceded that there might be topics inappropriate for schools.
"OK," he said. "So, common sense would govern that."
"Common sense is what’s lacking in this country," Maher said.
Maher said he needed merit behind the idea of systemic racism, and he used the Second Amendment as an example.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
"It's like, for example, why the Second Amendment really has to do with, in a country where you were keeping a hostile people in chains, you needed guns to keep the lid on that," he said. "So, that's a lot to do with why other countries don't have a Second Amendment the way we do."