Whoopi Goldberg spoke on Broadway at the White House in 2015. ABC suspended Goldberg for two weeks for saying on “The View” on Monday that the Holocaust had nothing to do with race.
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Whoopi Goldberg spoke on Broadway at the White House in 2015. ABC suspended Goldberg for two weeks for saying on “The View” on Monday that the Holocaust had nothing to do with race.
Carolyn Kaster / AP File Image
NEW YORK – Whoopi Goldberg has been suspended for two weeks as co-host of “The View” for what the head of ABC News called her “false and hurtful comments” about Jews and Massacre.
“While Whoopi has apologized, I have asked her to take time to think and learn about the impact of her comments. The entire ABC News organization stands in solidarity with her Jewish colleagues, our friends, family and community,” ABC News President Kim Godwin said in a statement posted Tuesday on Twitter.
The suspension comes a day after Goldberg’s remark during a discussion on “The View” that race was not a factor in the Holocaust. Goldberg apologized a few hours later and again on Tuesday morning, but the initial comment drew condemnation from several prominent Jewish leaders.
“My words upset a lot of people, that was never my intention,” she said Tuesday morning. “I understand why now and for that, I am extremely, deeply grateful that the information I received was really helpful and helped me make sense of a number of different things.”
Goldberg made his initial remarks during Monday’s talk show about the Tennessee school board’s ban on “Maus,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about German death camps. commune during World War II. She said the Holocaust is “not about race … it’s about human inhumanity towards other people.”
“I miss,” Goldberg said at the opening of Tuesday’s performance.
Goldberg’s outburst of comments this week underscores the longstanding complexity of some race-related issues, including the popular but hotly contested view that only people of color can may be a victim of racial discrimination.
That seems to be at the root of Goldberg’s initial comments, who is Black. On Monday’s episode of “The View,” she said the Holocaust is “not about race … it’s about human inhumanity toward others.” Panelists on the show talked about the Tennessee school board’s ban on “Maus,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about Nazi death camps during World War II.
“My words upset a lot of people, it was never my intention,” she said. “I understand why now and for that, I am extremely, deeply grateful that the information I received was really helpful and helped me make sense of a number of different things.”
“The View” brought in Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League and author of “It Can Happen Here,” on Tuesday to discuss why her words hurt again.
“Jews at the moment are feeling besieged,” Greenblatt said.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, vice-chancellor of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, praised Goldberg for being outspoken over the years on social issues but said he struggled to understand her claims about the Holocaust.
“The only explanation I’ve come up with is that there’s a new definition of racism that has been publicly released recently that defines racism solely as targeting people of color. And obviously history. teaches us something else,” Cooper said.
“Everything about Nazi Germany and its targeting of Jews and the Holocaust is about race and racism. It’s an unfortunate, unpublished historical fact,” he said.
Kenneth L. Marcus, president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Law, linked Goldberg’s remarks to broader misconceptions about the Holocaust, Jewish identity, and anti-Semitism.
Marcus, author of the book ‘Definitions of Anti-Semitism’, said: “It was her fault, she reflected a pervasive and dangerous misunderstanding of Jewish identity.
“There is a view that Jews should only be seen as white, privileged oppressors,” he said. “It denies Jewish identity and involves the bleaching of Jewish history.”
Marcus refers to the use of anti-Semitic stereotypes “of power, control, and malice,” along with downplaying or negating anti-Semitism.
In Israel, Jews are rarely recognized racially, in part because of the country’s diversity. The Jewish population, which makes up about 80% of the total population, includes Jews of European, Middle Eastern and northern African ancestry as well as recent immigrants from places like the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia.
However, Jewish identity goes far beyond religion. Israelis often refer to “the Jewish people” or “the Jewish nation”, describing a group or civilization bound together by a common history, culture, language, and traditions, and relationships deeply with Jewish communities abroad.
Goldberg’s apology via Twitter on Monday night, where she said she was sorry for the hurt she had caused, was greeted by Jewish leaders in America and the president of the Holocaust memorial Israel’s nation invited her to visit education.
Yad Vashem’s president Dani Dayan said “Goldberg’s apology and clarification was very important”, who invited her to the World Holocaust Memorial Center in Jerusalem to “learn more about the causes, events and the aftermath of the Holocaust.” His statement said Goldberg’s initial comments indicated “a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the Holocaust and of anti-Semitism.”
On Monday’s “The View,” Goldberg expressed surprise that some Tennessee school board members were uncomfortable about nudity in “Maus.”
“I mean, it’s about the Holocaust, which killed 6 million people, but doesn’t that bother you?” she speaks. “If you’re going to do this, then be honest about it. Because the Holocaust has nothing to do with race. No, it’s not about race.”
She continued that line despite objections from some of her fellow panelists.
The American Holocaust Museum in Washington responded to Goldberg with a tweet.
“Racism was central to Nazi ideology. Jews were not identified by religion, but by race. Nazi racist beliefs fueled crime genocide and mass murder,” it said.
That tweet also included a link to the museum’s online encyclopedia, which said the Nazis attributed negative stereotypes about Jews to a genetically defined racial legacy. biological.
On Twitter, there were some calls for Goldberg’s firing, where it appeared caught up in familiar debates between the left and the right. There was no immediate comment from ABC News, the watchdog “The View”.
Greenblatt said the talk show, in the market for a new co-host following the departure last summer of Meghan McCain, should consider hiring a Jewish woman to keep the issue anti-Semitism. Thai at the top.
