In Defense of Whoopi Goldberg

We seem to live in an age when people are quick to take offense at remarks they find troubling, even if the remarks are true and the speaker did not intend any offense, and even if the speaker has taken steps to correct any misunderstanding. Thus Whoopi Goldberg, who has apologized and been contrite for her remarks about the Holocaust, has been widely criticized and humiliated for comments that have been misconstrued.

ABC has punished her by laying her off for two weeks as co-host of “The View”. “Effective immediately, I am suspending Whoopi Goldberg for two weeks for her wrong and hurtful comments,” said ABC News president Kim Godwin, adding that “While Whoopi has apologized, I’ve asked her to take time to reflect and learn about the impact of her comments.  The entire ABC News organization stands in solidarity with our Jewish colleagues, friends, family and communities.”

Goldberg’s “wrong and hurtful comments” were made during a discussion she moderated on “The View” about a Tennessee school board’s banning of Maus, a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about Nazi death camps. Goldberg expressed surprise that it was nudity in the graphic novel and not the horrors of the Holocaust that appeared to concern the school board.  Goldberg’s co-host, Joy Behar, suggested that the nudity concerns were likely “a canard to throw you off from the fact that they don’t like history that makes White people look bad.” “Well,” said Goldberg, “this is White people doing it to White people.”

The discussion then turned to similar attempts to ban problematic parts of American history from being taught in schools, particularly history dealing with race and racism.  Goldberg stated that Maus “is about the Holocaust, the killing of 6 million people, but that didn’t bother you [the school board]?  If you’re [the school board] going to do this [ban Maus] then let’s be truthful about it….  Because the Holocaust isn’t about race ….  It’s about man’s inhumanity to man.”

Goldberg’s remarks reveal an obvious sympathy with the Jewish victims, and in no way denies either their identity or their victimhood. That she doesn’t understand Jews as a race is not intended to negate Jews as a people. Rather, her comments must be understood in the context of the Black experience in America. Goldberg understands, as do many Americans, that in common parlance “race” is defined in terms of distinctive physical appearance.  Jews are not, in these terms, a separate race.  There are Black Jews, Caucasian Jews, Asian Jews.

Goldberg’s remarks reveal an obvious sympathy with the Jewish victims, and in no way denies either their identity or their victimhood. That she doesn’t understand Jews as a race is not intended to negate Jews as a people. Rather, her comments must be understood in the context of the Black experience in America

Goldberg is correct on two counts.  First, technically she is correct because all people are of the same, single human race.  Nazism therefore was about “man’s inhumanity to man.” But more importantly, however we may construe ourselves – a religion, a family, a people – Jews are not a race as that term is generally understood. Jews are found amongst every race.

Hitler, of course, saw human beings as being comprised of different races, and categorized them in a uniquely Nazi way, with Aryans, the master race, at the top and the Jewish “race” at the bottom. But when Goldberg mentioned race, she was thinking about it as an American, not a Nazi. She was not saying that Jews are not a people, or that Nazis did not view Jews as a race.  Indeed, she wasn’t giving any thought whatever to the Nazis’ despicable world view.

The U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington responded to Goldberg with a tweet: “Racism was central to Nazi ideology. Jews were not defined by religion, but by race. Nazi racist beliefs fueled genocide and mass murder.” This is, of course, correct. Nazis viewed the world in mistaken racial terms. It used its mistaken view as a basis for murder. But there is no reason that Goldberg should buy into that horrendous ideology. She apologized, making this very point:

“[A]s a Black person I think of race as being something that I can see….  People were very angry, and they said, ‘No, no, we are a race,’ and I understand.  ….  I’m very upset that people misunderstood what I was saying, and so because of it they are saying that I’m anti-Semitic and that I’m denying the Holocaust, and all these other things which would never have occurred to me to do.”

Goldberg noted that she stood “corrected,” and that the Holocaust was “about race because Hitler and the Nazis considered Jews to be an inferior race” (emphasis added). To critique her for not addressing race or the Holocaust from a Nazi perspective simply ignores the meaning of race in the context in which Goldberg lives and speaks. Her remarks were not intended to minimize the Jewish experience in the Holocaust, nor our Jewish peoplehood. ABC should apologize, as should those who have publicly and privately critiqued her.

Mr. Smith is an appellate attorney in Los Angeles and an occasional contributor to the Jewish Journal.