At this point, you’ve probably heard that Disney/ABC suspended The View moderator Whoopi Goldberg for two weeks, for her on-air claim that the Jewish Holocaust wasn’t about race.
I won’t waste your time or mine arguing for or against the claim. I think Goldberg and many, many others often forget that “race” is a social construct. They also forget that the issue of “race” is not as black and white, pun intended, as it sometimes seems. I think Goldberg sees Jewish people as white, like the Germans. I, being African American and close enough to Goldberg’s age, do, too.
However, Nazi Germany didn’t agree with Whoopi and me, and they coded Jewish people as a different, inferior race before setting out to eliminate them from the human “race.”
Hence, yes, Whoopi, the Holocaust was indeed about race. You were wrong.
That said, I think Disney / ABC’s embarrassing reprimand of Goldberg was unfair. And to be clear, Disney / ABC should be as embarrassed by what they did as Goldberg probably is. (She, understandably, didn’t return my call for comment for this column.)
First, although The View now is a part of ABC’s news division, I don’t look to Goldberg and her estrogen-fueled cohosts for my source of credible news. The show hasn’t been the same, to my mind, since founder and creator (and one of my mentors) Barbara Walters left. It also hasn’t been consistently entertaining since Goldberg’s fellow comedian Rosie O’Donnell left…for the second time.
The View only exists, to my mind, to watch and listen to very rich women spout off about the topics of the day, during “Hot Topic” segments that Walters really should have trademarked, as they’ve been copied by many other talk show. (How YOU doin, Wendy Williams?)
After Goldberg’s misinformed Jew spew the other day, she did the only thing that any of us could do: she listened to the criticisms about her comments, and she quickly and extremely sincerely apologized. It was probably at the urging of her producers and / or network, but her apology was nonetheless sincere.
As a thank you from said network for doing what I’m almost certain they asked her to do, Goldberg was suspended from her job for two weeks. So much for loyalty, and for standing by a team member (often the only one who calms the cacophony that The View can be) when they stumble.
Goldberg’s employer had every right to have her back away from the table, I guess, but that doesn’t mean that it was the right thing to do. I don’t believe for a moment that the comedian is anti-Semitic. The woman formerly known as Caryn Elaine Johnson chose “Goldberg” as her stage name decades ago, for the love of (a Jewish) God.
And again, Whoopi’s no Lester Holt or Victor Blackwell. She’s a comedian who, maybe, got a little too comfy behind a live mic. It’s happened to the best of us. (How YOU doin’, Joe Biden?)
Read freelance writer MPC’s full feature.
Michael P Coleman is a Sacramento based freelance writer who has his eye on the Pulitzer Prize. Connect with him at michaelpcoleman.com or follow his blog, his IG and his Twitter.
