Proving there’s a double standard when it comes to who politically gets to have their career survive and life’s work preserved after making controversial comments, on Tuesday’s edition of ABC’s The View, co-host Whoopi Goldberg (a stage name) got direct absolution from Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt after she falsely claimed: “the Holocaust isn’t about race” (for which NewsBusters was first to report).
Whoopi began the show by suggesting she “misspoke” and while she tweeted out it last night, she wanted “you to hear it from me directly.”
“I said something that I feel a responsibility for not leaving unexamined because my words upset so many people which was never my intention,” she said. “And I understand why now, and for that I am deeply, deeply grateful because the information I got was really helpful and helped me understand some different things.”
She was born in 1955, 10 years after the end of WWII. Does she really think we’ll believe that she never learned about how Nazis thought of Jews?
But that was what they were going with, so Greenblatt gave her a personal lesson about Nazis ideology and how they thought they were the “master race”:
Well, Whoopi, there's no question that the Holocaust was about race. That's how the Nazis saw it as they perpetrated the systematic annihilation of the Jewish people across continents, across countries with deliberate and ruthless cruelty.
And literally the first page of Maus, the book you were talking about yesterday, Whoopi, it opens with a quote from Hitler, and literally it says, “The Jews undoubtedly are a race, but they are not human.” You see, Hitler’s ideology, the Third Reich, was predicated on the idea that the Arians, the Germans were a quote, “master race” and the Jews were a subhuman race. It was racialized anti-Semitism.
Greenblatt did note that the history of hate against Jews doesn’t comport well with “the way we think about race in 21st century America, where primarily it's about people of color.”
Adding: “But throughout the Jewish people's history, they have been marginalized, they have been persecuted. They have been slaughtered in large part because many people felt they were not just a different religion, but indeed a different race.”
At no point did Greenblatt address the recent revelation that the ADL changed their definition of racism to suggest only white people can be racist. “The marginalization and/or oppression of people of color based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people,” they wrote.
Further in the segment, as Greenblatt was fielding questions from the panel, co-host Joy Behar tried to single out Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and suggest he wasn't doing enough to condemn anti-Semitism:
You know, Jonathan, just this weekend in Florida, neo-Nazis held a rally targeting Jews. It was quite deplorable to watch it. How should elected officials be confronting the behavior? What should DeSantis do about that particular thing for example?
Greenblatt took a nibble at the bait but eventually said the right AND the left needed to call out anti-Semitism when they saw it on their side. “We need conservatives to call it out when it happens on the right, and we need progressives to call it out when it happens on the left. If you demonize Jewish people or you demonize the Jewish state, that is flat-out wrong,” he declared.
This double standard for absolution was made possible because of lucrative sponsorships from Consumer Cellular and Dove. Their contact information is linked
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
ABC’s The View
February 1, 2022
11:01:59 a.m. EasternWHOOPI GOLDBERG: So, yesterday, on our show, I misspoke, and I tweeted about it last night, but I kind of want you to hear it from me directly. I said something that I feel a responsibility for not leaving unexamined because my words upset so many people which was never my intention. And I understand why now, and for that I am deeply, deeply grateful because the information I got was really helpful and helped me understand some different things.
And while discussing how a Tennessee school board unanimously voted to remove a graphic novel about the Holocaust, I said that the holocaust wasn't about race, and it was instead about man's immunity to man. But it was indeed about race because Hitler and the Nazis considered Jews to be an inferior race.
Now, words matter and mine are no exception. I regret my comments as I said and I stand corrected. I also stand with the Jewish people as they know and y'all know because I've always done that.
So because of all of this, we've asked Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League and author of It Could Happen Here, to help us continue this very important conversation.
Jonathan, thank you for being here. I know a lot of people were very upset by what I said yesterday, and the things they've -- I regret. And so, I want to clear this up. Can you explain why the holocaust was about race?
JONATHAN GREENBLATT: Well, Whoopi, there's no question that the Holocaust was about race. That's how the Nazis saw it as they perpetrated the systematic annihilation of the Jewish people across continents, across countries with deliberate and ruthless cruelty.
And literally the first page of Maus, the book you were talking about yesterday, Whoopi, it opens with a quote from Hitler, and literally it says, “The Jews undoubtedly are a race, but they are not human.” You see, Hitler’s ideology, the Third Reich, was predicated on the idea that the Arians, the Germans were a quote, “master race” and the Jews were a subhuman race. It was racialized anti-Semitism.
GOLDBERG: Okay.
GREENBLATT: That might not exactly fit or feel differently than the way we think about race in 21st century America, where primarily it's about people of color. But throughout the Jewish people's history, they have been marginalized, they have been persecuted. They have been slaughtered in large part because many people felt they were not just a different religion, but indeed a different race.
And your platform, Whoopi, is so important using it now to educate people to realize that anti-Semitism remains a clear and present danger.
GOLDBERG: Yes.
(…)
11:10:23 a.m. Eastern
JOY BEHAR: You know, Jonathan, just this weekend in Florida, neo-Nazis held a rally targeting Jews. It was quite deplorable to watch it. How should elected officials be confronting the behavior? What should DeSantis do about that particular thing for example?
GREENBLATT: Well, I think we need elected officials -- Joy, I'm really glad you pointed that out because again, a Nazi rally in Florida. Just over a year ago, we had people, you know, wearing sweatshirts and t-shirts that said things like, champ Auschwitz or 6mwe, 6 million wasn't enough, rampaging through our Capitol. You know, from Capitol Hill to way back to Charlottesville when they chanted “Jews will not replace us.” We need elected officials to show moral leadership and to call out hate when it happens with clarity and conviction.
(…)
We need conservatives to call it out when it happens on the right, and we need progressives to call it out when it happens on the left. If you demonize Jewish people or you demonize the Jewish state, that is flat-out wrong.
(…)
