Whoopi Goldberg, Antisemitism and Racism

Is antisemitism a form of racism?

On the face of it, the question is absurd. All one has to do is glance at the Nuremburg Race Laws, with their careful delineation of Jewish and Aryan ancestry to preserve “racial purity,” to see that Nazi antisemitism was distinctly racial. The whole point of the Holocaust was to eradicate the Jewish “race” from the earth, and subsequent antisemitism is equally based on race. When the neo-Nazis marched in Charlottesville, they chanted “You will not replace us.” Meaning, the Jewish race will not replace the white race.  Of course antisemitism is a form racism.

So it comes as something of a shock to realize that the Anti-Defamation League has changed its definition of racism to exclude antisemitism. The old definition was unexceptional—“Racism is the belief that a particular race is superior or inferior to another.” But the ADL now defines the term thus: “Racism: The marginalization and/or oppression of people of color based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people.”

This, to say the least, is ridiculous. When Ava Muhammad called Jews “blood sucking parasites,” she was antisemitic but not racist? Or when Louis Farrakhan claims he’s not an antisemite, but “an anti-Termite,” he’s not being racist? What happens when someone insults a Jew of color? Is that racism or antisemitism?

The ADL had it right with their first definition: racism is when one race thinks they are better than all the others.

Separating racism from antisemitism, or any other form of bias, underlies Whoopi Goldberg’s toxic claim on “The View” that the “Holocaust isn’t about race” but “man’s inhumanity to man.” The topic was the Tennessee school board’s removal of Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel “Maus” from an 8th grade classroom because it contained “nudity” and the occasional swear word. Goldberg has since tweeted an apology, quoting the ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt’s correction: “The Holocaust was about the Nazi’s systematic annihilation of the Jewish people—who they deemed to be an inferior race.” (Apparently, Greenblatt now thinks that antisemitism is racism). But Goldberg’s tweet does not address the most offensive part of her comments, which also demonstrate what happens when each bias gets its own category that does not overlap with others.

After Joy Behar said that the school board used “the naked part as kind of a canard to throw you off from the fact that they don’t like history that makes white people look bad,” Goldberg made this jaw-dropping assertion: “Maybe. Well, this is white people doing it to white people. So, this is y’all go fight amongst yourselves.”

Ana Navarro tried to correct Goldberg, reminding her that the Holocaust is “about a white supremacist going after Jews and Gypsies.” Goldberg responded by doubling down on her claim: Jews and Gypsies “are two white groups of people.” If racism is only about whites oppressing people of color, as the ADL definition claims, then the Holocaust is of no concern to persons of color because it’s all about white people killing other white people who, in the view of the perpetrators, are insufficiently white. The Holocaust is “y’all’s” fight; it’s not hers.

On “The Late Show,” Goldberg tried to make things better but only further showed her ignorance, asserting that the Holocaust wasn’t “based on skin. You couldn’t tell who was Jewish,” which ignores how the Nazis used pseudo-science to determine racial identity. (ABC has suspended Goldberg for two weeks suspension “to reflect and learn” about the impact of her statements.)

Goldberg’s statements about how the Holocaust was a fight among white people perfectly demonstrates what happens when racism is in one silo, antisemitism in another, and anti-LGBTQ bias in yet a third. By separating out the different strands of hate, the ADL is not so much giving each its due (a form, I suppose, of inclusion), but giving permission for members of one group to ignore hatred of another—which is exactly what happened when Goldberg dismissed the Holocaust as one group of white people oppressing another group of white people.

Goldberg’s statements about how the Holocaust was a fight among white people perfectly demonstrates what happens when racism is in one silo, antisemitism in another, and anti-LGBTQ bias in yet a third.

But hate, we should always remember, is intersectional. The Nazis didn’t just hate Jews; they hated everyone and anyone who did not belong to “the master race”: Jews, gypsies, Black people, gays, it did not matter. While participants in the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally chanted against Jews, they were also protesting the removal of a statue of the Confederate general, Robert E. Lee. Antisemites likely do not have kind things to say about any darker-complected people. For example, while John Earnest’s antisemitism led him to shoot up a synagogue in Poway, California, his manifesto also referred to “glow-ni—-s” and “pajeets” (a slur against South Asians). The Ku Klux Klan’s primary target may be Blacks, but they also hate Jews, Latinos, Asians and LGBTQ people.

Racism is not restricted to persons of color. The ADL had it right with their first definition: racism is when one race thinks they are better than all the others. And Jonathan Greenblatt had it right when he tweeted to Goldberg: the Nazis “dehumanized Jews and used this racist propaganda to justify slaughtering six million Jews.”

The ADL needs to change its definition of racism back to the original one.

Quickly.

Peter C. Herman’s books include “Unspeakable: Literature and Terrorism from the Gunpowder Plot to 9/11,” and “Critical Contexts: Terrorism and Literature.” His opinion pieces have appeared in Newsweek, Salon, Areo, Inside Higher Ed, and Times of San Diego.