(Jewish Group) Whoopi Goldberg apologizes for Holocaust race comment -- then doubles down

[Behind the Aegis]

Whoopi Goldberg apologizes for Holocaust race comment — but doubles down in saying Jews are not a race

Whoopi Goldberg apologized for upsetting people by starting a debate on Monday over whether the Holocaust was “about race,” writing that she is “sorry for the hurt I have caused.”

But in an appearance that aired that same night on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” she elaborated on some of her views on the Holocaust that will likely continue to generate controversy.

On “The View,” a show that Goldberg co-hosts, she said “the Holocaust isn’t about race,” but rather about “man’s inhumanity to man.” As she explained in an apology that she tweeted that evening, and on Colbert’s show, the statement brought on a torrent of criticism and accusations of antisemitism. She wrote in a tweet that she should have said the Holocaust “is about both” inhumanity and race, quoting Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt in the process.

“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,” she wrote.

Link to tweet

more...

So very disappointing. While certainly not an anti-Semite, she is missing the forest for the trees. It isn't about whether Jews are seen as a "race" in 2022, but the fact that Jews were seen as a "race" in a 1933 burgeoning Nazi Germany, as well as many centuries before. The conversation being brought about by a discussion about Maus, the topic is, therefore, the Holocaust and the perceptions in that time period. Of course, the entire episode has given some an opportunity to whine about Jews, the Holocaust, and how the two are portrayed; it is the newest form of Holocaust revisionism, and it ain't just for right-wing neo-Nazis anymore!

[Alexander Of Assyria]

1. How did she double down? Seems sincere apology and acknowledgment of her lack of

understanding of the history.

[Behind the Aegis]

4. She went on Colbert and reiterated her comments about Jews and race.

Again, showing, while her apology was clear, honest, and good, IMO, she still doesn't get it.

[Ocelot II]

2. The Holocaust was *all about race.* Naziism was all about race.

Hitler's entire goal was to create a "thousand-year Reich" in which Europe (at least) would be completely dominated by a so-called "master race" of white northern Europeans, none of whose traceable ancestors were anything but northern Europeans. For the Nazis, everything was based on their desire to create that world of what they deemed superior people. And so they designated as separate races everyone who did not fit into that world in order to isolate or eliminate them. Anti-Semitism was already a common thing in Europe, though before the Nazis took over it was not yet official government policy; and Jews, who could be easily identified, isolated and thus racialized, became the primary target - although many groups who were considered other (Romani, non-white people, gay people, the disabled, as well as ideological and political opponents) also were in their crosshairs. Whether "race" is even a real thing is a whole other topic, but it's absolutely clear that racism writ large - not just racism applied to Black people, as we think of it now - was the whole point of Naziism and the cause of the Holocaust.

I don't think Whoopi Goldberg is anti-Semitic (and racism is obviously a prime example of man's inhumanity to man), but she certainly didn't get what the Holocaust was about. She is still looking at racism as a Black issue, not recognizing the essential point that the Nazis regarded Jews as a race - and, even more importantly, that the new Nazis in Trump's America still do.

[elias7]

3. Easier to understand the disappointment seeing the rest of the article

She sounds like what black people complain that white people sound like when trying to dig out of a hole, only to dig in deeper…