We're All Whoopi Goldberg Now

[question everything]

It was a bad moment when Whoopi Goldberg asserted on “The View” that the Holocaust wasn’t about race but about “man’s inhumanity to man.” Her comment, limited by her understanding of the American black-white binary of race, was historically uninformed. Hitler identified Jews as an inferior race and specifically targeted them for extermination. Nazi ideas were deeply influenced by Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (1816-82), who believed Germanic “Aryans” were superior to all other whites and nonwhites alike.

(snip)

Ms. Goldberg’s offense isn’t that she is an anti-Semite, it is that she is a self-important celebrity with a platform. Like many others in her position, she takes that not as a responsibility but as an opportunity. She speaks because she can, not because she has something informed to say. What she has read or understands about the Holocaust, about racial ideas in 19th- and 20th-century Europe, or about the Jews in general is likely not much. Yet somehow she was enthusiastically ready to educate her co-hosts and her audience about a subject on which she couldn’t write a serious two-page essay.

Who does this? Who speaks with presumed authority and moral superiority but next to no knowledge? In our culture, that would be everyone with a Twitter account, an iPhone, an election coming up, or a TV show. Our entire culture is marinated in people mindlessly mouthing off simply because they have an audience. Everyone is Whoopi Goldberg in his own small way.

Viewers who tune in are to blame too. No one mistakes Ms. Goldberg for Bernard Lewis. But they tune in for her history lessons anyway, and she is all too happy to provide them. Hitler might have destroyed the great Yiddish-speaking Jewish civilization of Europe, but its wisdom has survived. Perhaps Ms. Goldberg, and all of us, can learn something from this Yiddish proverb: The wise man, even when he holds his tongue, says more than the fool when he speaks.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/were-all-whoopi-goldberg-now-anti-semitism-jews-holocaust-hitler-race-religion-extermination-the-view-11643820936 (subscription)

Rebecca Sugar is a writer and philanthropic consultant in New York.

[TheRealNorth]

1. This all seems kind of a stupid nothingburger distraction to me...

So the problem is that some 19th Century antisemites classified Jews as another race, and Whoopi Goldberg initially refused to validate that classification of the Jewish people that way because in her experience race was mostly based on skin tone?

From a historical sense, you can say that the Nazi's thought of the Jews as a race, and that is part of what motivated the Holocaust. But I fail to see why validating the racial classifications of the Nazis is important today.

I mean, who decided is a group of people is a race or an ethnic group? Does the group decide? And who in that group decides? I tend to favor academic consensus based on some sort of definition, but that is just me.

[Behind the Aegis]

5. "Africans brought to the country were immigrants."

“That’s what America is about,” Carson said. “A land of dreams and opportunity. There were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships, worked even longer, even harder for less. But they too had a dream that one day their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, great-grandsons, great-granddaughters might pursue prosperity and happiness in this land.”

-- Dr. Ben Carson, former Housing and Urban Development secretary; March 2017

So, let me ask: did/do you view that as a "nothingburger"?

You really are not understanding the situation at all. Are you Jewish? If so, then why doesn't this concern you? If not, then why do you persist on being dismissive of what is and isn't important in regard to the history of the Jewish people rather than listening to Jewish voices?

So the problem is that some 19th Century antisemites classified Jews as another race, and Whoopi Goldberg initially refused to validate that classification of the Jewish people that way because in her experience race was mostly based on skin tone?

It isn't she "refused to validate", she incorrectly, ahistorically claimed the Holocaust was not about race. It was; as has been pointed out NUMEROUS times in the past few days. Have you read those responses? Articles?

From a historical sense, you can say that the Nazi's thought of the Jews as a race, and that is part of what motivated the Holocaust. But I fail to see why validating the racial classifications of the Nazis is important today.

AAARGH! Again, it is not about "validating" their view, but understanding it was their view. The situation is problematic because it was WRONG. Her remarks were hurtful and historically INACCURATE. If you care about preserving history and teaching history correctly, such as making sure history isn't "whitewashed", such as claiming slaves were or were like immigrants, then the same should hold true when the history of the Jews is involved and not relegated to a dismissive, "this is a nothingburger." Just because it wasn't full on Nazi, it doesn't mean it should be addressed, corrected, and further education should take place. When little "nothings" are overlooked, ignored, or dismissed, they have a way of snowballing into something larger and more unyielding.

I mean, who decided is a group of people is a race or an ethnic group? Does the group decide? And who in that group decides? I tend to favor academic consensus based on some sort of definition, but that is just me.

Did you know, there WAS some academic consensus, in that time (and before), that declared Jews a separate race? So, why are you not "favoring" it as you claim? Sure, in 2022 that classification is no longer valid, but then, the period under discussion, it was, therefore it is germane to the topic.

Also, calling the Holocaust, "white on white crime" is dismissive of the true heinous nature of the Holocaust and was tacky as hell.

[zipplewrath]

2. She badly misunderstood

There's no doubt that Whoopie badly misunderstood many things about racism and the holocaust. She really needs to know and understand more, especially in the position she has. However..... This is the kind of reaction that got Al Franken out of the senate. Well meaning people with a poor understanding of the reality, get hoisted upon a petard not of their making. Okay, she has a flawed understanding of both racism, AND the holocaust. That really is a "teachable" moment. Understand their misconception and take the opportunity to educate/correct it. Instead, there is a tendency to "make an example of them", which mostly serves to make sure that people don't participate in these discussions, especially those that most have the need.

An ardent racist deserves everything that comes their way, but someone whose personal understand of racism comes from experiencing it a black women needs to be accommodated to understand that it's not just about the color of ones skin. Whoopie saw the holocaust as a "white on white" thing, not understanding that "whites" divide themselves into "races".

Look, "race" is a human construct intended to divide people, mostly for the purpose of certain peoples of gaining power. Not only is it not about white versus black, it can be about different countries in Asia, or different "tribes" in Africa. Saddam Hussein divided his country between two peoples of SLIGHTLY different religious beliefs. What Whoopie missed was that the Nazis created a "race" of "jews" and advanced that concept. They also created an "Aryan" race. By the way they treated communists and homosexuals similarly. We can discuss if that means the Nazis thought of them as a "race".

[Skittles]

3. so have a lot of DUers

they just don't get how egregious her remarks were - and honestly, I would have though a POC like Whoopi would understand the concept of being targeted better, so maybe that's MY lack of understanding showing

[roody]

4. Count me out.

I've watched the view maybe 2 times. Remember Whoopie and Ted Danson?

[DAngelo136]

6. I'm Sorry But...

Nothing she said was "wrong" or a "misunderstanding".
Yes, 6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust. So too were 5 million others. They were Catholics, Protestants, Gays, Developmentally Disabled, Socialists, Labor organizers and anybody who was deemed "Enemies of The State". 11 million people; human beings were systematically and tragically murdered by the Nazis over several countries in Europe.
And EVERY. ONE. OF. THOSE. LIVES. MATTERED. Every one of those lives had meaning.

The Nazis had their views on "race"; so did everybody else in the "civilized world" And they implemented their genocidal policies based on those views. So did the United States, Great Britain, France, and even The Soviet Union. And you know what? They were all wrong.
From a scientific view, there is no such thing as race. Let me repeat: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS RACE. It is a social construct; it's made up. That was pretty much known even in Darwin's time.

If you're Jewish and you're offended, I don't know why. She didn't deny that it happened like so many Holocaust denialists. She correctly said that it wasn't about "race" and she was right. It was about the Nazis wanting to expand their territories. As an aside, the Nazis thought the Chinese and Japanese were "honorary Aryans". This at the same time Americans considering them as "inferior" and locking them up in concentration camps. She was absolutely right; this is an example of "Man's inhumanity to man", as it was with the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade, the Belgian rule in the Congo, The British concentration camps of Boers in South Africa (where the practice began), the genocidal policies of the U.S. against the indigenous peoples, the Turkish annihilation of Armenians and so and so on. Nobody has a monopoly on suffering; one people's suffering is not a negation of somebody else's.

If you go to the Bronx Zoo and look in one of the animal exhibits (which I think the practice is barbaric) you will see a display of "The Most Dangerous Animal In The World". It's a mirror.

[question everything]

7. None of the others that you mentioned was a subject of a special conference to eliminate them

Yes, each of them mattered. But the Wannesee Conference was called specifically to plan the final solution to the Jewish Question.

Wannsee Conference

The Wannsee Conference (German: Wannseekonferenz, German pronunciation: [ˈvanseːkɔnfeˌʁɛnt͡s] (audio speaker iconlisten)) was a meeting of senior government officials of Nazi Germany and Schutzstaffel (SS) leaders, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. The purpose of the conference, called by the director of the Reich Security Main Office SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, was to ensure the co-operation of administrative leaders of various government departments in the implementation of the Final Solution to the Jewish question, whereby most of the Jews of German-occupied Europe would be deported to occupied Poland and murdered. Conference participants included representatives from several government ministries, including state secretaries from the Foreign Office, the justice, interior, and state ministries, and representatives from the SS. In the course of the meeting, Heydrich outlined how European Jews would be rounded up and sent to extermination camps in the General Government (the occupied part of Poland), where they would be killed.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference

It is unfortunate that you are not familiar with these distinctions.

[Martin68]

9. I'm not sure I agree that Goldberg has "next to no knowledge."

Take a step back and consider that she may have a valid point to make when she prefers the term "man's inhumanity to man." Yes, she's wrong to say that racism wasn't a core element of the Nazi ideology. But Catholics, communists, and mentally challenged or handicapped white people were also the targets of their eugenic campaign that led to extermination in concentration camps. It's actually more complicated than just pure racism. As a black American, Goldberg's view of what constitutes racism could well be valid in spite of the majority's consensus that it was a purely racist program. It is not as black and white as some are insisting.

[question everything]

10. Please read my reply above 7

Yes, many were exterminated but only the Jews were a subject of a special conference for the "final solution."

Also, as we see it every day with removing statues of revered leaders: we cannot apply today's criteria to history.

Nazi Germany did consider Jews a race. An inferior one.

[wnylib]

11. Even if Nazi Germany had not

considered Jews a race, they are an ethnicity as well as a religious group largely due to the rule in Judaism that anyone with a Jewish mother is a Jew. While Judaism does accept converts, and Jews can be black, white, Middle Eastern, or Asian, 2000 years of persecution and segregation in Europe created a separate culture and identity for Jews. The hereditary element of Nazi anti Semitic laws included counting anyone with just one Jewish grandparent as Jewish. It also included all Jews regardless of whether they practiced the Jewish faith or whether or not they had converted to Christianity.

By using biological identity for Jews, Nazis made it clear that they considered Jews to be primarily an ethnic or racial group. They considered Jews to be genetically inferior and "foreigners" who were not fit to be counted as German citizens.

The national policy of Nazi Germany was formed to the degree of conferences and laws specifically targeting Jews for their identity. The inclusion of communists, any sexual identity besides heterosexuality, and physical and mental disorders was part of the view that "inferiors," or "undesirables" polluted the gene pool of Germans.

I am not Jewish. But, I have learned about Nazi treatment of and attitudes toward Jews, Poles, communists, various gender IDs, and ill people from the many books and movies about Nazi Germany and WWII.

The OP is correct, IMO, in saying that Whoopi was not knowledgeable enough about Nazi Germany to make the statement that she did. She admits that herself, to her credit. She gave the most sincere and prompt apology that I have heard in a long time.

African Americans have been dealing with racial discrimination in the US for 5 centuries and it is still ongoing. It includes but is not limited to segregation, stereotyping, attitudes of inferiority toward them, murders with impunity, large slaughters with impunity, threats and intimidation, and systemic racism from schools to banks to police departments. Dealing with those things constantly in US society (and abroad), can leave people unaware of similar discriminations of others because so much of their time and energy become focused by necessity on their own issues.

I once worked with an AA woman who was confused enough about Jews and Nazi Germany that she believed that the medical experiments on Jews committed by Nazis were a Nazi policy of making Jews into the master race. When I tried to explain what it was about, she accused me of not knowing the facts, just like I would not know any AA names beyond Martin Luther King, Jr. and Michael Jackson. Of course that was not true, but I got through to her by asking what Native American people she knew about besides Pocahontas and Sacajawea. I am not Native, but one of my grandmothers was.

We should not make injustice toward any group of people a matter of competition over who suffered or still suffers most or has the most well known people. We need to learn about groups outside of our own and be united in acknowledging and fighting any injustice to any people for any reason/excuse.

[Martin68]

12. Your points are all well-taken. My point is that race was not the ONLY target of the Nazi

program - and who can disagree that the Nazi's handiwork was a prime example of "man's inhumanity to man?" As you say, "We should not make injustice toward any group of people a matter of competition over who suffered or still suffers most or has the most well known people."