ABC News has announced that they will be suspending Whoopi Goldberg, longtime host of the talk show “The View,” over bigoted comments about the Holocaust.
In the announcement, ABC News president Kim Godwin revealed that the suspension was directly in response to Whoopi Goldberg’s comments about the Holocaust and race.
“Effective immediately, I am suspending Whoopi Goldberg for two weeks for her wrong and hurtful comments. 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 and communities,” Godwin said.
— ABC News PR (@ABCNewsPR) February 2, 2022
Goldberg, whose real name is Caryn Elaine Johnson, sparked the controversy during “The View” on January 31st during a discussion about the graphic novel “Maus” when she claimed that the Holocaust was actually “not about race.”
According to Goldberg, the Holocaust isn’t about race because the Nazis and the Jews were both white. Instead, she claims that “man’s inhumanity to man” was the real issue.
Her cohosts immediately pushed back on her comments, with Joy Behar pointing out that the Nazis had also gone after black people, and that they had considered the Jews to be a different race, and Ana Navarro arguing that the Nazis had been white supremacists who were rounding up gypsies and other groups alongside the Jews.
WATCH:
Sparks fly as The View panel confronts Whoopi after she says "the Holocaust isn't about race. No. It's not about race."
"Well, the considered Jews a different race," Joy Behar says."But it's about white supremacy. It's about going after Jews and Gypsies," Ana Navarro adds. pic.twitter.com/GZwZSi2qXi
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) January 31, 2022
Goldberg later appeared on Stephen Colbert’s late night “comedy” show in a desperate attempt to do damage control over her comments, but instead of apologizing, she actually doubled down.
The Daily Wire transcribed the conversation between Whoopi and Colbert, writing:
“People were very angry, and said no, we are a race. And I understand. I felt differently. I respect everything everyone is saying to me. I don’t want to fake apologize,” she added. “I am very upset that people misunderstood what I was saying. And because of it they are saying I am anti-Semitic, and denying the Holocaust, and all these other things that would never occur to me to do.
“Have you come to understand that the Nazis saw it as race?” Colbert asked. “Asking the Nazis, they would say, ‘Yes, it’s a racial issue.’”
“This is what’s interesting to me because the Nazis lied. It wasn’t,” Goldberg said, and then attempted to split hairs by suggesting it was an ethnic issue rather than a racial one. “They — they had issues with ethnicity, not with race, because most of the Nazis were white people and most of the people they were attacking were white people. So to me, I’m thinking, how can you say it’s about race if you are fighting each other?”
