Whoopi Goldberg apologizes for claiming ‘Holocaust is not about race’

Talk show host Whoopi Goldberg has apologized after she claimed earlier on Monday that the Holocaust ‘was not about race’ because it involved ‘two groups of white people’ and instead was an example of ‘man’s inhumanity to man’. 

Goldberg made the astonishing comments on The View, the ABC show. It stunned her colleagues and sparked outrage among viewers, and Goldberg later apologized.  

‘On today’s show, I said the Holocaust ‘is not about race, but about man’s inhumanity to man’. I should have said it is about both,’ she said.

‘As Jonathan Greenblatt from the Anti-Defamation League shared, “The Holocaust was about the Nazi’s systematic annihilation of the Jewish people – who they deemed to be an inferior race.”

‘I stand corrected.

‘The Jewish people around the world have always had my support and that will never waiver. I’m sorry for the hurt I have caused.

‘Written with my sincerest apologies, Whoopi Goldberg.’ 

The panel had been discussing a Tennessee school removing the comic Maus from its curriculum because it contained nudity. 

Critics are now demanding that Goldberg be fired from the show. They pointed to other talk show hosts and TV personalities like Sharon Osborne and Roseanne Barr who were fired over making controversial remarks. 

Whoopi started off by saying: ‘Personally I am shocked because given the story of Maus I am surprised that that’s what made you uncomfortable. 

‘It’s about the Holocaust, the killing of 6million people, but that didn’t bother you. This is white people doing it to white people so y’all go fight amongst yourselves but…’ 

Later, she carried on: ‘Let’s be truthful about it. The Holocaust isn’t about race. It’s not about race. It’s not about race. It’s not about race. It’s about man’s inhumanity to man. That’s what it’s about.’  

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Whoopi Goldberg sparked outrage by claiming on The View that the Holocaust was ‘not about race’ because it’s ‘two white groups of people’.

Co-hosts Ana Navarro, Joy Behar and Sarah Haines all argued back but she continued: ‘But these are two white groups of people? You are missing the point. The minute you turn it into race, it goes down this alley. Let’s talk about it for what it is, it’s how people treat each other.’

Among those to have condemned her comments is Stop Antisemitism, a non-profit organization, which tweeted: ‘Newsflash @WhoopiGoldberg. 6 million of us were gassed, starved and massacred because we were deemed an inferior race by the Nazis. How dare you minimize our trauma and suffering!’ 

The Auschwitz Memorial in Poland tweeted the TV star with a link to a history of the Holocaust.  

‘@WhoopiGoldberg, Holocaust – the destruction of European Jews. 

‘A seven-chapter online course about the history of the Holocaust. Links to all chapters below in the tweet.’

Navarro pointed out to her how the Nazis persecuted Jews and ‘Gypsies’, targeting  them as white supremacists. 

Haines tried to point out that Nazis didn’t consider Jews ‘white’ but it did not resonate with Goldberg. 

There was immediate backlash on Twitter. 

‘WTF? This is insane. The extermination of 6 million Jews wasn’t about race??? Will any rock stars or renegade royals now boycott Whoopi Goldberg and/or ABC for this dangerous misinformation?’ tweeted Piers Morgan.  

Meghan McCain, a former View co-host who left the show last year after feeling marginalized for her Conservative views, tweeted: ‘Antisemitism is a cancer and a poison that is increasingly excused in our culture and television – and permeates spaces that should shock us all.’ 

Michael Rappaport filmed a video of himself railing against Goldberg.  

‘Whoopi Goldberg, love you big fan – you went on your show and said the Holocaust wasn’t about race.

‘Yes it f*****g was! It was all and only about race! It was about ‘kill the Jews. They’re not white, they’re Jewish.’

Survivor children in the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau after the liberation, 1945. Godlberg said it wasn’t an act of racism because it involved two white groups 

Goldberg’s co-host Ana Navarro tried to argue with her that the Holocaust was about race, but Whoopi spoke over her 

Sarah Haines tried to point out that the Nazis considered themselves the superior race over Jews, but Goldberg did not take her point on-board 

‘That’s like saying slavery wasn’t about race. You need to apologize. You need to explain yourself. Not good, not cool.’  

In 2016, Goldberg claimed at an event in London that she was Jewish and just ‘felt it’. 

‘I just know I am Jewish. I practice nothing. I don’t go to temple, but I do remember the holidays. Religion is a lot of work, it’s exhausting. So I keep it simple, I have a pretty good relationship with God. We talk,’ she said. 

She then said she was often asked of she is Jewish because of her last name. 

‘When people heard the name ‘Whoopi Goldberg’, and then I turned up, I was not what they were expecting.

‘People would ask me in a roundabout way, ‘So are you?’ And I would say ‘What?’ And they’d say ‘What does your name mean?’

In 2017, Whoopi launched a range of ‘inclusive’ holiday sweaters including this one which depicted an octopus as a Menora. She said her Jewish friends felt ‘left out’ at the time of year 

‘And I would say ‘Do you mean Whoopi?’ And they’d say ‘No, the other name.’ 

‘And then they would say ‘Come on, are you Jewish?’ And I always say ‘Would you ask me that if I was white? I bet not.” 

She said she had visited Israel and felt a ‘deep connection there’ but had also felt a connection to ‘Palestine’, adding: ‘I feel a real connection there, but also with Palestine as well. 

‘We are one people, we really are.’  

It is not the first time Whoopi has made controversial remarks on the show. 

She previously defended convicted sex pest Bill Cosby and she defended actor Mel Gibson after audio emerged of him calling a Latino member of staff a ‘wetback’. 

Goldberg said on The View: ‘You can say he’s being a bonehead but I can’t sit and say that he’s a racist having spent time with him in my house with my kids. I can’t say it and so I really just need to say that. I don’t like what he’s done. Make no mistake.

‘Drunks say stupid stuff to people all the time because they’re drunk.’  

Pulitzer Prize-winning novel ‘Maus’ about Holocaust survivors is removed from eighth-grade English curriculum by Tennessee school board over ‘rough language’ and drawing of nude woman 

A Tennessee school board has voted unanimously to remove a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about Holocaust survivors from its eighth-grade curriculum, citing a drawing of a nude woman, eight swear words and its ‘not wise or healthy’ content.

The McMinn County Board of Education voted 10-0 to remove ‘Maus’ by Art Spiegelman from the curriculum on January 10, despite educators arguing that the graphic novel is an ‘anchor text’ in eighth-grade English language arts instruction and the centerpiece of a months-long study of the Holocaust. 

Published in 1991, Maus is inspired by the story of Spiegelman’s parents, Vladek and Anja, who survived the Holocaust after being shipped to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. The graphic novel depicts Nazis as cats and Jewish people as mice.

Two editions of Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel Maus have topped Amazon’s bestseller’s lists

Pages from the graphic novel Maus by American cartoonist Art Spiegelman are pictured

Author and artist Art Spiegelman, shown in his New York studio in 2004, turned the pain of the Holocaust into a Pulitzer Prize winning comic book novel

The board heard from instructional supervisors and other school officials who defended the use of the book in class but were unanimously overruled.

‘I went to school here 13 years. I learned math, English, reading and history. I never had a book with a naked picture in it, never had one with foul language. … So, this idea that we have to have this kind of material in the class in order to teach history, I don’t buy it,’ said board member Mike Cochran. 

Spiegelman, 73, called the ban ‘Orwellian’ in an interview with CNBC, saying that he learned about it on Wednesday, a day before Holocaust Remembrance Day.   

Experts say the book has been taught at schools for nearly two decades. 

Since announcing the removal of the book from the curriculum, Maus has shot up to number 1 on the Amazon bestseller list. 

The book is not available for delivery until mid-February. The Complete Maus, which includes a second volume, was at No. 3 and is also completely out of stock.

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