(Jewish Group) Whoopi Goldberg faces backlash after repeating false Holocaust comments

[Behind the Aegis]

Whoopi Goldberg is facing a fresh round of backlash following her latest historically inaccurate statement about the Holocaust, which she claimed "wasn't originally" about race in an interview with the U.K. newspaper The Sunday Times.

The controversy marks the second time this year that Goldberg, 67, has come under fire for what Jewish leaders and Holocaust experts say are inaccurate and offensive comments about the Nazi-sponsored mass murder of six million European Jews between 1933 and 1945.

Goldberg made the latest remarks in an interview published Saturday, after the reporter said that "Nazis saw Jews as a race," referencing Goldberg's earlier comments from January, in which she claimed the Holocaust was "not about race."

“Yes, but that’s the killer, isn’t it?” Goldberg told The Sunday Times reporter. “The oppressor is telling you what you are. Why are you believing them? They’re Nazis. Why believe what they’re saying?”

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I am sure many self-described liberals/progressives would defend Joy Behar, a white-identifying Jew, if she made similar ahistorical comments about slavery with the same vigor they are defending Goldberg's ahistorical comments.

[Abolishinist]

1. Sad. In the past, when in doubt,

I've always summoned Whoopi for intellectual clarity.

[elleng]

2. Is Christianity a race?

[walkingman]

3. I wouldn't call it a race but I definately call it weird. Just simply bizarre.

[Lunabell]

4. Nazis considered Jews to be a race of people.

Using all sorts of measurements and calculations to ascertain your amount of "Jewishness". Look it up before posting something borderline antisemitic.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-racism

Nazi beliefs and ideas about race shaped all aspects of everyday life and politics in Nazi Germany. In particular, the Nazis embraced the false idea that Jews were a separate and inferior race. This belief is known as racial antisemitism.

[elleng]

6. Thanks so much, Lunabell.

I am Jewish, my family has been for generations, originally from somewhere in the Caucasus, I think.

I sure as heck don't get my identity from whatever 'Nazis' think/thought; who the heck were/are THEY? National Socialist German Workers' Party Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei

Nazism is a form of fascism,[3][4][5][6] with disdain for liberal democracy and the parliamentary system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism

[Lunabell]

7. I am not Jewish.

Born and raised in a fundamentalist bible thumping christo-fascist house. But, for some reason as a child, I really related to my Jewish friends. I worked in a deli in Nashville that kept kosher as much as they could. I loved my bosses, the Zagers and worked there for 3 years in highschool.

I'm an atheist now, but racism, antisemitism, homophobia and just bigotry in general pisses me off to no end!! The jewish have been tormented, murdered and vilified by so many for so long. I just won't stand for that here on DU.

Plus, we need to know history and the history is that nazis considered Jewish as a race. So, nazism is racism.

[wnylib]

5. Christian identity is not defined by parentage.

In Judaism, you are Jewish if your mother is Jewish. You can also be Jewish by conversion, but some branches of Judaism don't acknowledge conversions in other branches.

Judaism is both a religion and a cultural/ethnic identity. Would that make it a race? Depends on how you define race or if there's really such a thing as race. Some people challenge the idea of race on a biological basis and consider it a social construct.

Nazis is were not the first to define being Jewish as a race. The Spanish did that during the Inquisition. Centuries before the Inquisition, during a period in Spain called the Conviviencia, when Jews, Muslims, and Christians lived in relative harmony, there were often intermarriages and conversions between the faiths, especially among people of high rank in society. Later, during the Inquisition, genealogies of nobles and other people of high rank were examined to "out" those with Jewish or Muslim ancestry whose families had identified as Christian for generations. The motivation was greed as much as it was religious zeal. The property of "outed" people could be confiscated.

Anti Semitism could be considered racism, even if you see race as a social construct. In fact, especially if race is a social construct.

[Behind the Aegis]

8. Seriously? How is that even relevant?

She is talking about something she clearly does not understand. Placing today's standards on yesteryear's events is a form of anachronism. So, even if Jews are not considered a "race', many Jews are part of an ethnic group, sometimes more than one, but back during the Nazi era, and long before, Jews were considered a "race". It is irrelevant to claim it wasn't about "race", because it was, even if it doesn't match modern-day standards.

[agingdem]

9. Whoopi Goldberg .. Caryn Elaine Johnson

took her stage name “Goldberg” at her mother’s suggestion..having a Jewish last name could help her career in Hollywood..so when I hear her opine on Jews/Holocaust race versus ethnicity may I suggest she STFU..

My parents were Holocaust survivors..the sole survivors of their respective families.. how or why Hitler regarded Jews as a race is irrelevant .. 6 million were shot/gassed/incinerated…that’s a fact

[Behind the Aegis]

10. It is beyond disappointing and, honestly, disgusting.

It is amazing to see people defend or make excuses for her bullshit, even Jews; that just makes it worse!

[Behind the Aegis]

11. Goldberg Doubles Down on Antisemitic Comments, Insists Holocaust 'Wasn't Originally' About Race

Whoopi Goldberg Doubles Down on Antisemitic Comments, Insists Holocaust 'Wasn't Originally' About Race

The holidays are supposed to be a nauseatingly cheerful time of year, but the Jews couldn’t make it through eight celebratory days of Hanukkah without being interrupted by antisemitic hate. My people, in fact, enjoyed just five full days of candle-lighting and prayer-reciting before that streak was brought to a halt by repeat antisemitic offender Whoopi Goldberg.

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Setting aside the “big old stinky dump” remark, it’s important to understand that while Goldberg herself is part of intersecting oppressed minority groups as a Black woman in America, her assertion that the Holocaust wasn’t about race echoes the same messaging employed by white supremacists and neo-Nazis today.

“Germans considered themselves the ‘master race’ and claimed all other non-Aryans were inferior. This is a trope we still hear echoed by white supremacists in the U.S. today,” the ADL’s Greenblatt continued in his statement responding to Goldberg’s latest comments. “In a moment when antisemitic incidents have surged across the US, [Goldberg] should realize that making such ignorant statements can have real consequences.”

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The fact that Goldberg felt she had the authority to suddenly revisit her take on the Holocaust does not exist in a vacuum. Donald Trump and a growing legion of alt-right apologist Republicans began reintroducing coded antisemitism into politics long before the 2016 election, with some even going so far as to recently publicly evoke Hitler himself. With the implosion of Kanye West came the collision of pop culture, politics, and white supremacy, and along with it, the mainstreaming of antisemitic hate and white nationalist conspiracy theories inflating Jewish power (The Jews own Hollywood! The Jews control the banks!).

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[Behind the Aegis]

13. Irrelevant.

I will remind you of your presence in the JEWISH GROUP.

Jews are an ethno-religious group. So, some Jews are ethnically Jewish, some are religiously Jewish, and some are both.

The discussion here is Goldberg's ignorance of history and the Jewish experience. Attempting to split hairs is not a valid argument.