(Jewish Group) Whoopi Goldberg Apologizes After Uproar Over Latest Holocaust Comments

[Behind the Aegis]

Whoopi Goldberg Apologizes After Uproar Over Latest Holocaust Comments: 'I Always Stood With the Jewish People and Always Will'

Following criticism from the Anti-Defamation League of comments she made in a recent interview with a British newspaper about Jewish people and race, Whoopi Goldberg has issued a clarification and apology.

"Recently while doing press in London, I was asked about my comments from earlier this year. I tried to convey to the reporter what I had said and why, and attempted to recount that time. It was never my intention to appear as if I was doubling down on hurtful comments, especially after talking with and hearing people like rabbis and old and new friends weighing in," Goldberg said in a statement released Tuesday.

"I'm still learning a lot and believe me, I heard everything everyone said to me. I believe that the Holocaust was about race, and I am still as sorry now as I was then that I upset, hurt and angered people. My sincere apologies again, especially to everyone who thought this was a fresh rehash of the subject. I promise it was not. In this time of rising antisemitism, I want to be very clear when I say that I always stood with the Jewish people and always will. My support for them has not wavered and never will," she continued.

In an interview with the Sunday Times published on Dec. 24, Goldberg was asked about the comments she made earlier in 2022 that got her suspended from "The View" for 2 weeks. At that time, Goldberg, while in no way denying the holocaust or minimizing antisemitism, expressed the view that the holocaust "wasn't about race." Her reasoning was that Jewish people are white and can pass in white society in ways Black people cannot, though this view obviously reflects America's history of racism and not Nazi beliefs about Jewish people that motivated the holocaust.

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Now that she has apologized again for the SAME thing she apologized for the last time, will those defending her, outright or implicitly, stop too?!

[Skittles]

1. WHAT is her problem

I mean, WTF

[Behind the Aegis]

2. Seems she is not alone.

It is nothing more than microaggressions against Jews, as well as a form of intellectualization of anti-Semitism. The fact that people, including some Jews, are deflecting or defending this shit, is disgusting. Now that she has apologized, again, for the same thing, I wonder if she and her defenders will wise up or, more likely, portray themselves as victims.

[Skittles]

3. I don't understand

how someone who no doubt has FELT the effects of oppression, why would they feel the need to minimize the pain of others.....I don't get it

[Lunabell]

4. While I don't know what's in their heads,

I'd say it's a classic shit rolls downhill syndrome for some.

[nightwing1240]

5. It was a very insensitive thing to say

I like Whoopi Goldberg but she should feel horrible for these views she had regarding the holocaust.

[PinkTiger]

6. I don't get why people don't understand.

Whoopi wasn’t being antisemitic. She was simply relaying her (misguided) belief that Jewish people are not racially profiled and discriminated against in the same way that Blacks are. She was wrong, and once she was properly re-educated, stated as such.
So why the WTF?
Am I just not getting it?

[Behind the Aegis]

10. "Stupid comment while black gets one unlimited negative press, I guess."

Completely offensive, disrespectful, and off-target to say in the Jewish Group! Do NOT attempt to make this an issue of anti-Black racism without proof, especially when it comes across as diminishing the Jewish experience by someone who is NOT a Jew!

[LakeArenal]

11. I apologize. I didn't read the group my rally bad.

[Behind the Aegis]

9. Because she "doubled down" on the SAME thing.

That is why people are upset and angry. So, no, you aren't getting it. It isn't that Goldberg is anti-Semitic, but what she said is dangerously close to it but more to the point it is ahistorical, and it is an attempt to minimize the Jewish experience.

[JT45242]

7. I work with a Scottish woman who thinks she is discriminated as an immigrant

Tried to explain that she had white privilege....if you don't talk in a store, you look like everyone else. So security does not follow you around.

We did an antiracism training about 15 years ago. One of the poor white women in our church said "I have no white privilege, I am poor. Wield no political power and got made fun of for being poor when growing up." Then we went to the high end mall. The African American woman with a PhD who had been a school principal was followed all around the store by security. One of the other well educated blank women had her purse checked when leaving the store after walking around and not buying anything.

These two retired educated black women explained that this was their life every day for nearly 70 years each.

Racism in America is very different from Naziism and those who haven't had the life experience of being followed in every store and having to give the talk to their kids to not get killed by police for walking, driving, or shopping while black do not understand. When one of the other women gave me the speech that she told her son. I was shocked...and I had spent a year teaching in a 70 percent gang affiliated, 85 percent minority ( mix of AA and Hispanic) student population.

Whoopi did not understand the historical Jewish experience because her own life experience prior to talking to those people when she said it had taught her that if you look white, then you can pass in society and not be targeted.

That antiracism training made a huge difference to me e as the poor kid in a rich school who was derogatorily called Kmart because we couldn't afford Levi's and I wore Kmart brand jeans.

Few of us no what it is like outside our own bubble. We just hope that when someone tries to educate you on a different lived experience that you listen and learn as it appears that Whoopi did.