ABC should rescind Whoopi Goldberg's suspension.

[madaboutharry]

I think the suspension is unnecessary and excessive. Whoopi is not anti-semitic. She made a mistake because of a lack of knowledge.

I think she sincerely was misinformed about the issue of race and Jews throughout history. The facts are this: It was not until post World War II that Jews were universally identified as white. If one were to look at their grandparents and great-parents immigration papers from the early 20th Century, they would find that their race was listed as Hebrew. That is how the world looked before the Holocaust. Whoopi's mistake was defining race through 21st century standards rather than through the standards of Nazi Germany. Jews were identified by the nazis as untermensch, subhuman. Not just a different race, but an inferior race.

Instead of suspending her, ABC would have chosen better by requesting the president of the ADL to give Whoopi a private tour of the Holocaust Museum. It could have been opportunity for people to learn something.

[lark]

1. Whoppi made an ignorant racist comment & is paying the price.

Good. People should not be spouting off as experts about things which they know nothing and never gave one damn about or they would have known it be begin with. Her bad. Hopefully she has learned from it because I dont think she's a bad person.

[Johnny2X2X]

7. Agree

She is dealing with some consequences, that is not the end of the world for her. She is learning a lesson and will be back doing what she loves soon while hopefully enlightening people on the things she now learned.

[Doodley]

10. To say she doesn't give one damn about six million Jews being murdered is unfair.

[lark]

11. By saying it's just white people v white people she totally belittled the deaths.

Maybe she was just being sarcastic, but it was totally ignorant and uncaring in the moment for her to say that.

[Doodley]

32. Agreed.

[cemaphonic]

57. Yeah, now that I think about it, this aspect of her comment is being a bit glossed over.

Even if she weren't incorrect about the racial motivations of the Nazis, that's a pretty callous thing to say. I would hope that she would call it out when people dismiss black v black violence in America as no big deal.

[lark]

79. Exactly! n/t

[uponit7771]

18. " and never gave one damn about or they would have known it be begin with", the subject of the OP

... is Whoopi, this intimates it was her.

[uponit7771]

17. "never gave one damn about or they would have known it be begin with" I didn't know and ...

... and I lived in Germany the first part of my life and a Jewish poster who OP'd a question about this very subject didn't know either.

YOU might have known how Germany defined race but after nearly a decade there I didn't, they wouldn't even talk about.

Her ignorance isn't a slight her doubling down on the ignorance was though

[madaboutharry]

31. Who are you calling a poser?

[uponit7771]

33. no one, left out the T in the word "poster"

[Sympthsical]

2. If she were Republican, would you be making this ask?

If this were a Fox News host saying these things, would the attitude be, "You know, we shouldn't sanction them for this. I'm sure a field trip would be sufficient."

Because I really don't think that would be the case.

[madaboutharry]

4. I believe in paying attention to context.

She was not speaking from malice. And yes, I would apply that standard to anyone.

[Sympthsical]

5. This really boils down to, "Well, she's on our side."

Excusing and advocating for lesser punishments on this basis isn't great.

Although, at least you're not engaged in the weird Holocaust denial I'm seeing in other threads in service of defending someone on the same team. So kudos on that.

Because this all devolved into yikes territory rather rapidly. Like, I'm reading posts that would find comfortable homes in white supremacists spaces.

So this Whoopi thing got that going for us.

[uponit7771]

21. Whoopi Doesn't have a history of supporting racist or racist organizations so false equivalency

[Sympthsical]

26. This is just a work around

Denying why the Holocaust happened is very bad. She then doubled down.

I get a lot of this is coming from, "It's not so bad. She's on our side."

Just so long as people know they're engaged in it and don't try to wrap it in sophistry and high-mindedness.

If someone we didn't like said this - even without a history - we'd crucify them.

Gina Carano didn't have a history, and her dreck was milder than what Whoopi said. Disney canned her for it. And a lot of the people who called for her head are suddenly finding an awful lot of nuances and justifications for Whoopi.

People should abide by the rules they set down for others. These are the rules - rules Whoopi herself eagerly promoted when it was someone she didn't like. I don't particularly care for them, but this is what we're told we have to work with.

If the rules only matter sometimes, then they don't matter and they were never sincere.

[uponit7771]

29. Gina Carano is openly MAGA, you got any other false equivalence?

Yes, Whoopi doubled down on the ignorance cause ... she was ignorant that doesn't make the person of malice when it came to the issue just needlessly ignorant.

It minimizes MAGA racism to compare a person with a history of supporting equality with people who have a history of supporting racist.

Context matters and again, I didn't know how they defined race either and I lived nearly decade in Germany and spent good time trying to figure shit like that out.

[Sympthsical]

35. So racism out of ignorance should go without punishment

Well this is a new line for this place.

You really going with that one? You're going to keep with that standard moving forward? Because I know a lot of ignorant MAGA types who simply don't know better. Is "Well, they were raised that way. We shouldn't be too hard on them for it," the new precision measurement?

That's quite a standard shift all in the service of defending a talk show host.

It's not how I'd alter around my principles to suit, but I admit things have gotten weird in our culture.

[uponit7771]

38. Lawfully no, socially depends on the persons intent and background. If they're supporting openly

... racist people like Putin's Whore and enabling racist mindset and systems then they lose the benefit of the doubt.

I don't see how that's hard

I know a lot of ignorant MAGA types who simply don't know better.

MAGA's know Putin's Whore is openly racist I doubt more than 1 out of 10 people can tell you how Germans ID'd Jewish people without records before 1933.

[Sympthsical]

39. I think it's time to check some privilege

There is a very weird bit of antisemitism floating around all this. Intentionally or unintentionally.

But I think we've reached the point that we are now dealing with problematic attitudes regarding race.

Many, many people have tried explaining it, and all that has resulted is doubling down, double standards, obfuscation, and obstinate refusal to examine the problematic nature of one's own views and defenses within the subject.

As with all racism, it's time to run that anti-check and figure out where the malware is.

[TheProle]

41. Oh yeah, no history at all....

Specifically, many people are looking back on Goldberg’s defense of her friend, actor and filmmaker Mel Gibson, on The View in 2010, following his racist and antisemitic comments about Black and Jewish people—including an audio recording of the actor saying that he hoped his then-girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva, was “raped by a pack of n---ers.”

“I don’t like what he did here,” she said on the show. “But I know Mel and I know he’s not a racist. He may be a bonehead. I can’t sit and say that he’s a racist, having spent time with him in my house with my kids.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/whoopi-goldbergs-long-history-of-appalling-takes-from-defending-mel-gibson-and-bill-cosby-to-the-holocaust

[uponit7771]

43. Yeah, that was 12 years ago ... she still think the same today?

[TheProle]

52. You literally used the word "history"

You: "Whoopi Doesn't have a history of supporting racist or racist organizations so false equivalency"

[uponit7771]

54. history like a habit of the shit and upthread I even mentioned not singular instances 20 years ago..

... cause if that was the case we wouldn't have Biden as prez with so many black women supporting him.

People here understand the difference between an ally who says something stupid and an enemy set out to do ill will.

Or should,

I don't see Whoopi as the latter

Fuck this, folk want to fight ... I don't have the energy for that

[Hassin Bin Sober]

77. She keeps revealing herself and people wonder why she gets blowback

[Cha]

65. Exactly.

[The Mouth]

81. If she were a tRump supporter and made a statement like she did about Polanski

You know what the result would be.

She richly deserves all of this and more.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/sep/29/roman-polanski-whoopi-goldberg

[Ferrets are Cool]

3. Liberals always pay a price. Repugs seldom do.

Or so it seems to my lil peabrain.

[Bettie]

14. Megan "Do you know who my father is" McCain

never got consequences of any sort for her daily racist and ugly speech.

Right wing: Check.

White Woman: Check.

[Ferrets are Cool]

40. You and I are on the same page.

[The Grand Illuminist]

74. We don't bring the fear to them.

That is the problem.

[Shrek]

6. She made a statement that was factually incorrect. Big deal.

No one was harmed nor did she intend any.

Error caused by ignorance is not worth a suspension.

[lark]

12. Oh I disagree 100%.

Ignorance is not an excuse when the truth is 100% out there, especially when it's racially motivated like this was.

[demmiblue]

16. Especially during a time when crimes/outward displays of hatred toward Jews is ever increasing.

Her comments minimized the Jewish experience.

[Ms. Toad]

56. No one was harmed?

When a person of national prominence denies that the focus of the Holocaust was on exterminating anyone they defined as part of the Jewish race?

At a time when the last of the holocaust survivors are dying?
At a time when individuals who financially exploited the Jews they aided during their journey to the Polish concentration camps are given equal billing with the hundreds of thousands who died there?
At a time when Holocaust denial is growing?
At a time when self-proclaimed Nazis are openly marching in Florida?

It may not be possible to identify specific people who were harmed - but her comments did, or will, harm people who are put in futher danger by those still incined toward anti-semitism. Voices of influence matter.

I don't necessarily believe she should be suspended, but her remarks - especially doubling down when challenged - were not without harm.

[Voltaire2]

8. Should we give RFKjr a pass too?

[uponit7771]

24. Whoopi has a history of supporting racist? Come on people

[Boomerproud]

34. He hasn't been given a pass by anyone.

nt

[LynnTTT]

9. Intent does matter

Whoopie is both right and wrong.
The Germans identified Jews as a separate race, but most people did not. The US Census forms did not include Jews as a race.
And the Nazis also killed gypsies, the mentally ill and the handicapped of all races.

[Behind the Aegis]

67. Actually, the US DID, in some instances, identify Jews as a race.

If you have access to Ancestry, you can search some of the censuses, mainly before 1940, and you will find the following identifications on some: W = White; N/B = Negro/Black; M = Mulatto (mixed race), I = Indian; O/A = Oriental/Asian, and H = Hebrew. While not all censuses reflect this, it was used as a marker. Also, take a look back at immigration, and the inclusion or exclusion of Jews would indicate "race" was a factor.

The Nazis, for their part, also classified the Rom/Romany, as well as Slavs, as a sub-human races. But, unlike the Jews, those groups were seen in a more "positive" light, in that the Nazi Reich felt those "races" would make suitable servants, unlike Jews, who needed to be eliminated wholesale.

[ForgedCrank]

13. There is way too much

hyperbole swirling around about this mainly because she is so despised by the likes of Tucker Carlson and the entire right.
I do tend to agree that what she said was not real bright, but I saw no ill intent. I see no justification for her losing her job or even getting some time off to think about it (the words of the network).
Some people are WAY too quick to go for the jugular, but that is the world we live in now thanks to the former ass and his band of hateful supporters.

[rgbecker]

19. The more attention this gets, the better.

A two week suspension is nothing and the chance to get people to read up and understand is priceless. I hope Whoopi takes a group of media experts to the Holocaust Museum and wakes people up.

[Klaralven]

20. ABC just wanted to give her a minimal slap on the wrist and make the whole thing go away

In the late '80s I was at a corporate AA training session and there was an interesting discussion between the black trainer and a Jewish colleague.

Race relations between Blacks and Jews is not something that the media would want to discuss.

[demmiblue]

22. Nah. n/t

[Evergreen Emerald]

23. The left: we always eat our own

Consider context. The Jewish religion includes people from all ethnic backgrounds and of all colors.

To compare what Whoopie said with Tucker Carlson is absurd.

[SYFROYH]

25. No, she had the knowledge. The suspension is fine.

She's kind of fortunate that people don't press her on why she chose Goldberg as a part of her stage name.

[Sympthsical]

27. Who, Caryn Johnson?

Speaking of having a history that's at least weird.

Thing is, I like Whoopi. I grew up with her. Had the Sister Act album when I was a kid and everything.

But liking her doesn't mean having to defend her in this instance. Which a lot of people seem to be bending over backwards to do. And if they have to rewrite Holocaust history to do it, well, small price to save a celebrity a paid vacation.

[MichMan]

28. I thought it was pretty ironic she chose a Jewish stage name instead of her real name of Johnson

I don't believe she was showing any malice, but was just somewhat ignorant. She did drop out of HS, so her formal education was pretty limited.

[uponit7771]

30. "No, she had the knowledge" link and quote? I lived in Germany nearly a decade and didn't have

... the knowledge of how they defined race outside of records especially in other countries.

That part wasn't taught in schools.

[cemaphonic]

44. She *should* have had that knowledge

The Nazi's obsession with racial purity, and how they identified Jews (along with Slavs, Romani and others) as a separate, inferior, and basically subhuman race is incredibly well-documented and well-understood. Anyone with a high school level education in 20th century history would at least encounter the Nuremberg Laws.

Perhaps she was ignorant of it, but maybe she can use this time to reflect on the wisdom of spouting off on sensitive subjects of which she is poorly informed.

[uponit7771]

45. How the Germans ID'd Jews without docs is not well known. THAT they ID'd known Jews as subhuman

... is WORLD WIDE known ...

[MichMan]

62. It appears that she dropped out of High School...

According to some fact checking I did

[SYFROYH]

48. Really? You didn't know that Nazis considered Jews an inferior race? Subhuman?

This knowledge does not hinge on knowing the technical aspects of building the "master race".

That surprises me.

[uponit7771]

49. Yeah of course I didn't know that, I didn't even know WWII happened and what nueclear bomb ?! Come..

... on instead of attacking people just read what they truly disagree with

it's part of having a conversation and not a fight.

[Celerity]

36. No. It should stand.

[Beakybird]

37. I'm a liberal agnostic Jew who loves Whoopi. I took great offense at her words.

Last edited Thu Feb 3, 2022, 02:21 PM - Edit history (1)

She essentially said that the Holocaust was nothing but white on white crime. Shame.

[ProfessorGAC]

42. That, I Get

My objection to the suspension is based on the "ignorance" being her lack of knowing the Nazis defined the Jewish people as a "race".
I don't think we should adjust our definition of race based upon how the Nazis defined it.
There are Jewish people of nearly all races & ethnicities. The Nazis calling them an "inferior race" has no meaning to me. It should be obvious that the Nazis were wrong about A LOT!

[cemaphonic]

46. But race is a wholly social construct

It has no meaning outside of the definitions that various societies give it. The Nazis saw it as a racial issue, therefore it was, even if it doesn't square with 21st century American notions of race.

So yes, call out Nazi racial theories for the stupid pseudoscientific garbage that they are, but those theories are still relevant when discussing *why* the Nazis did what they did.

[ProfessorGAC]

60. We'll Have To Agree To Disagree

The Nazis could have used religion as the excuse. They still would have committed those horrors.
They called it a race. I think they're wrong.
And, since I think they would have used any excuse to commit these crimes, what they chose feels more like a hot button word for their propaganda than any valid construct.
But, if Jewish people are offended, then it's offensive. I'm not Jewish so I can't have those same sensibilities.
I'm empathetic to their discomfort, but that doesn't change my refusal to take the Nazis' terms as valid.

[ibegurpard]

47. Just stop

This is a pretty minimal penalty and she has a history of problematic statements.

[madaboutharry]

50. The president of the Anti-defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt

agrees with me. So no, I don't need to just stop.

[uponit7771]

51. +1

[ripcord]

55. People keep posting this like this one person can absolve Whoopi in the eyes of all Jewish people

If Whoopi didn't know what she was talking about she should have kept her mouth shut, she has no one to blame but herself for her suspension.

[Sympthsical]

61. Because people are furious with him

Gee, people angry at a Jewish man for something they think was his fault when it wasn't.

Where in history has that ever been a bad circumstance?

Do you think any of this is a good look? At all?

[Cha]

66. She has Every Right to Voice her

Opinion on this Discussion Board.

[cemaphonic]

53. Nobody is owed a soapbox

I think that she spoke out of ignorance, rather than malice, that her apology was gracious and seemed sincere, and that she is basically a decent person.

But the position that she holds is a massive privilege, and should be considered a profound responsibility. Learning to take more care when discussing sensitive subjects of which she is poorly informed seems like a reasonable and appropriate consequence.

[Calista241]

58. She learned the age old lesson that once you bring up Hitler, Nazis or the Holocaust,

you've automatically lost the argument.

[Sogo]

59. Thank you for this post.

I have the same lack of understanding and historical insight as Whoopi and have been trying to figure out what the suspension was all about since the news broke. I have never considered any of my Jewish friends as another "race" but again did not know the historical context, which I will chalk up to a lack of depth in my education of that period of history.

[nolabear]

63. They did have that exact person on the show next day.

There was an extended conversation, he explained the problem and was listened to, he said he knew she hadn’t meant harm and was an ally, and she was very receptive to both his knowledge and to doing more such conversations.

I guess we’ll see where it goes. Those who are just using her as an object to punish “the libs” will just do what they do til the next target comes along.

We need to ignore the random snipers, do what we feel is right, personally, socially and legally, work tirelessly to elect excellent lawmakers, and when we misstep either in word or deed, learn and go on.

If she wanted to make it a cause, cool, though that won’t change the ragers’ minds. That can’t be the cause. Learning and teaching can.

[Cha]

69. Thank you for your informative

post.

[beaglelover]

64. I agree. I also thought the Holocaust was about religion not race.

I guess I'm misinformed too.

[Behind the Aegis]

68. I agree.

While I understand the position of some other posters who support this two-week suspension, I think it is overkill. A few days? Sure, actions have consequences. But just like not all crimes are treated the same, neither should instances like this be treated the same. She is not an anti-Semite. I have yet to see anyone, other than far-right assholes, claim otherwise. She offered a real and genuine apology. Could she use more education? Of course, so can many others, including a SLEW of posters here and what a wonderful opportunity could have been had if, instead of suspending her, they opened up a conversation into the nature of the Nazi beast, racism in that time in different parts of the world, and how our understanding of race has evolved (or devolved). Instead, this suspension has become the target of debate and discussion, and the original error is being pushed to the background.

Ironically, most people against the two-week suspension have been Jews, including, if you can believe it, Jews on the right!!

[Mosby]

70. Given her platform she deserved this suspension.

I think they should consider replacing the view people with folks who are better educated. It's supposed to be a fun show where people talk intelligently about current events. That the opposite of what they got right now.

[chowder66]

71. Demand an apology, apologize sincerely, shit-can the person who apologized sincerely.

There are non-apologies and then there are heartfelt apologies. Both seem to get opined to death because people have to have mental outrage at all things at all times.

It's fucking tiring.

[moondust]

73. Fine with me.

I haven't paid close attention to all she has said but I suspect she was trying to note the differences between the obvious visual racism in the U.S. and elsewhere vs. the horrors of the holocaust not always tied to skin color.

[Sewa]

75. Lighten up, she got a two week vacation

She’ll be able to spend more time sitting by the pool at her mansion. 💀🤙

[BlueIdaho]

76. I think Whoopi's is getting close to her expiration date

This only moves her closer to it.

[Meowmee]

78. 2 weeks is nothing

For the harm she has caused. I’m pretty sure she knew what she was doing when she made that statement and it was a terrible thing to say.

[Oneironaut]

80. It's pointless apologizing. People are out for blood anyways.

I’ve heard takes on The View that were just as stupid, but no one got suspended for them. I categorize this stupid statement as historical ignorance.

[jcmaine72]

82. I disagree, but...

We shouldn't pile on, either.

Whoopi will be back better than ever after her two weeks are up and we can put this behind us.