Category: Whoopi Goldberg

One of my least favorite gossip subsets is “Whoopi Goldberg said something appalling and people are really mad about it.” Whoopi has a long history of saying awful sh-t, and people – mostly conservative jackholes – always climb up her ass about it. Both things can be true: Whoopi says incredibly offensive stuff regularly, and conservatives target Whoopi particularly because she’s a politically liberal Black woman. This week, everyone’s mad at Whoopi because she said some God-awful sh-t about the Holocaust:

“The View” moderator Whoopi Goldberg has apologized after provoking outrage for repeatedly asserting that “the Holocaust isn’t about race.” Her initial comments came during a segment of the ABC talk show on Monday that focused in part on a Tennessee school district’s decision to ban “Maus,” a graphic novel that depicts the horrors of the Holocaust. Earlier this month, McMinn County, Tennessee, Board of Education removed the book from its eighth-grade English language arts curriculum, citing “rough, objectionable language” and a drawing of a nude woman.

During the roundtable discussion, Goldberg said she was surprised that the nudity in “Maus” — and not the Holocaust itself — is what appeared to concern the school board, while co-host Joy Behar replied that the nudity concerns were likely “a canard to throw you off from the fact that they don’t like history that makes White people look bad.”

“Well, this is White people doing it to White people, so y’all gonna fight amongst yourselves,” Goldberg said, referring to the Holocaust. While none of the co-hosts pushed back after that statement, the conversation then turned to how some are attempting to ban problematic parts of the nation’s history, particularly history dealing with race and racism, from being taught in schools. Goldberg responded: “If you’re going to do this, then let’s be truthful about it because the Holocaust isn’t about race.” She added that the Holocaust, which saw an estimated 6 million Jews and 5 million others killed as a result of the Nazis’ racist ideology, was about “man’s inhumanity to man” and said it involved “two White groups of people.”

In a statement late Monday, Goldberg said she made an error with her comment.

“On today’s show, I said the Holocaust “is not about race but about man’s inhumanity to man.” I should have said it is about both,” she wrote on Twitter. “As Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League shared, “The Holocaust was about the Nazi’s systematic annihilation of the Jewish people — who they deemed to be an inferior race.” I stand corrected. The Jewish people around the world have always had my support and that will never waiver. I’m sorry for the hurt I have caused.”

[From CNN]

Ugh. Of course the Holocaust was about race! Jewish people are Semitic. That’s literally why it’s called “anti-Semitism,” because it’s racism against Semitic people. Nazis literally called Jewish people “an inferior race.” I can’t believe The View cohosts didn’t push back on Whoopi in real time. This is the kind of dumbf–k Holocaust misinformation which LEADS to hate crimes and racist propaganda. Anyway, as you can see, Whoopi “apologized” and everybody was still really mad at her. This time, ABC couldn’t clean up Whoopi’s mess with an on-air apology and a promise to do better. They actually had to do something harsher: they suspended her from The View for two weeks.

Whoopi Goldberg, the comedian and actress who is also a co-host of the ABC talk show “The View,” will be suspended for two weeks, the network announced Tuesday night, after she said repeatedly during an episode of the show that aired on Monday that the Holocaust was not about race, comments that come at a time of rising antisemitism globally. She later apologized.

In a statement on Tuesday night, Kim Godwin, president of ABC News, said that Ms. Goldberg would be suspended for “her wrong and hurtful comments.”

“While Whoopi has apologized, I’ve asked her to take time to reflect and learn about the impact of her comments,” she said. “The entire ABC News organization stands in solidarity with our Jewish colleagues, friends, family and communities.”

There was a fierce backlash to Ms. Goldberg’s remarks. Jewish groups said that her comments were dangerous and the latest example of growing ignorance about the Nazi genocide. During World War II, under a policy of mass extermination, the Nazis killed six million Jews — about a third of the world’s Jewish population at the time — on the basis that they were an inferior race.

[From The NYT]

For what it’s worth, Page Six’s media insiders say that Whoopi could conceivably be fired from The View. She would only have herself to blame, quite honestly. Imagine digging in your heels about this, just days after International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and during a period where there’s a global rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes.

Photos courtesy of Instar.