Whoopi Goldberg is apologizing after her “insensitive” comments about the Holocaust caused an uproar online following Monday morning’s episode.
According to People, The View co-host made the comments in conversation with her fellow co-hosts about a Tennessee school’s decision to ban the comic book Maus, written by Art Spiegelman, that details his father’s experience as a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. It was then that Goldberg asserted that the Holocaust was “not about race, “but rather “man’s inhumanity to man.”
After being challenged and corrected by co-hosts Joy Behar and Sarah Haines, the Color Purple star doubled down, adding:
“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. It’s a problem. It doesn’t matter if you are Black or white because Black, white, Jews, Italians — everybody eats each other. So if you are uncomfortable if you hear about Maus, should you be worried? Should your child say, ‘Oh my God, I wonder if that’s me?’ No. That’s not what they’re going to say. They’re going to say, ‘I don’t want to be like that.’
Naturally, her comments garnered swift backlash from many online. The nonprofit Stop Antisemitism wrote: “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!”
Added the US Holocaust Museum in 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.”
Well, no less than 24 hours later, Goldberg issued an apology late Monday night for her comments:
“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,” the statement began. “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.”