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The View Cohost Whoopi Goldberg Apologizes for Saying the Holocaust Wasn’t About Race

The View co-host made the insensitive comments during a conversation about the Maus book ban in schools on Monday morning's episode.

Whoopi Goldberg is apologizing after her โ€œinsensitiveโ€ comments about the Holocaust caused an uproar online following Monday morningโ€™s episode.

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According to People, The View co-host made the comments in conversation with her fellow co-hosts about a Tennessee schoolโ€™s decision to ban the comic book Maus, written by Art Spiegelman, that details his fatherโ€™s experience as a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. It was then that Goldberg asserted that the Holocaust was โ€œnot about race, โ€œbut rather โ€œmanโ€™s inhumanity to man.โ€

After being challenged and corrected by co-hosts Joy Behar and Sarah Haines, the Color Purple star doubled down, adding:

โ€œThe minute you turn it into race, it goes down this alley. Letโ€™s talk about it for what it is. Itโ€™s how people treat each other. Itโ€™s a problem. It doesnโ€™t matter if you are Black or white because Black, white, Jews, Italians โ€” everybody eats each other. So if you are uncomfortable if you hear about Maus, should you be worried? Should your child say, โ€˜Oh my God, I wonder if thatโ€™s me?โ€™ No. Thatโ€™s not what theyโ€™re going to say. Theyโ€™re going to say, โ€˜I donโ€™t want to be like that.โ€™

Naturally, her comments garnered swift backlash from many online. The nonprofit Stop Antisemitism wrote: โ€œNewsflash @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!โ€

Added the US Holocaust Museum in a tweet: โ€œRacism was central to Nazi ideology. Jews were not defined by religion, but by race. Nazi racist beliefs fueled genocide and mass murder.โ€

Well, no less than 24 hours later, Goldberg issued an apology late Monday night for her comments:

https://twitter.com/WhoopiGoldberg/status/1488320164517101574

โ€œOn todayโ€™s show, I said the Holocaust โ€˜is not about race, but about manโ€™s inhumanity to man.โ€™ I should have said it is about both,โ€ the statement began. โ€œAs Jonathan Greenblatt from the Anti-Defamation League shared, โ€˜The Holocaust was about the Naziโ€™s systematic annihilation of the Jewish people - who they deemed to be an inferior race.โ€™ I stand corrected. The Jewish people around the world have always had my support and that will never waiver. Iโ€™m sorry for the hurt I have caused. Written with my sincerest apologies, Whoopi Goldberg.โ€

Straight From The Root

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