Whoopi Goldberg Suspended From 'The View' for Holocaust Remarks

[ShazzieB]

98. I just watched the segment with Jonathan Greenblatt, and I thought it was great.

I still haven't seen the segment where she said the things she got in trouble for, so I still don't know exactly what she said. (If someone could point me to a clip or a transcript of her exact words, I'd be very appreciative, btw.) But from what I have been able to glean, she was in need of some education, and she very graciously acknowledged that herself, so I don't see why anyone should be arguing that point.

Greenblatt very courteously and masterfully provided that education, not just to Whoopi but to the entire viewing audience of the show, so you could say Whoopi inadvertently created a teachable moment with her gaffe, which was handled in the best possible way by having Greenblatt come on to clear things up.

Is the 2 week suspension overkill? It seems like it is, but as I already mentioned, I still don't know what she said, so there's no way I can evaluate exactly how bad it was. But I can confidently say that anyone who thinks the Holocaust had nothing to do with race is in need of some education. It may not look that way through 21st century eyes if one is not fully informed of the historical context, but it most assuredly was. The Nazis definitely saw the Jews as a different race from the so-called superior "Aryan" race to which they believed they and their fellow Germans belonged. That was the whole basis for wanting to exterminate the Jews.

"Race" as a concept has not always been exclusively linked with skin color the way it is now, the meaning of the word in the first half of the 20th century was different from the meaning it has now, and it had a very specific meaning in Nazi Germany that led to horrible things, even though the people involved on both sides were all what we would call "white." That is what Whoopi was evidently not aware of and has now been educated about by Jonathan Greenblatt.