Whoopi Goldberg Apologizes For Saying The Holocaust Was ‘Not About Race’ On ‘The View’

Whoopi Goldberg says she 'stands corrected' and that she's 'sorry for the hurt I caused' for saying that 'the Holocaust is not about race' on 'The View.'

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January 31, 2022 11:05PM EST
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UPDATE: Whoopi Goldberg, 66, has apologized for saying “the Holocaust is not about race” at 8:15 PM ET on Mon, Jan. 31, the same day that episode of The View aired. “On today’s show, I said the Holocaust ‘is not about race, but about man’s inhumanity to man.’ I should have said it is about both,” she tweeted. She referenced the tweet from Anti-Defamation League CEO Josh Greenblatt, mentioned below and stated, “I stand corrected. 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.”

ORIGINAL STORY: Whoopi Goldberg is facing a slew of backlash for the comments she made about the Holocaust and its relation to race on Monday, Jan 31’s episode of The View. The co-host made her bold statement while discussing how a Tennessee school district recently banned Maus, a graphic novel about a Holocaust survivor. “The Holocaust isn’t about race,” Whoopi stated. “Well, they considered Jews a different race,” her co-host Joy Behar clarified to which Whoopi responded, “it’s not about race.” “It’s about man’s inhumanity to man,” she said when asked to explain her stance.

“But it’s about white supremacy. It’s about going after Jews and Gypsies,” her co-host Ana Navarro interjected. “But these are two groups of white people,” Whoopi retorted. “You’re missing the point. The minute you turn it into race, it goes down this alley. Let’s talk about it for what it is. It’s how people treat each other. It’s a problem. It doesn’t matter if you’re black or white because black, white, Jews, Italians, everybody eats each other.”

Twitterverse was not happy with Whoopi’s implications about the Holocaust not being about race. Michael Rapaport called out Whoopi in a live Twitter video demanding that she apologize. After telling Whoopi he loved her, he firmly expressed that the Holocaust was “all and only about race” and likened it to saying that “slavery wasn’t about race.”

Additionally, a number of Jewish advocacy groups and activists spoke out on the matter. StopAntisemitism.org shared a video of the comedian’s rant on The View. “Newsflash @WhoopiGoldberg 6 million of us were gassed, starved and massacred because we were deemed an inferior race by the Nazis,” the wrote along with the tweet. “How dare you minimize our trauma and suffering!”

American Jewish Committee CEO David Harris also condemned Whoopi’s rhetoric. “Nazi Germany considered all Jews a ‘subhuman race,'” he tweeted. “That’s why they wanted to exterminate the entire Jewish people, including my family, & almost succeeded. Please rethink & apologize.” Anti-Defamation League CEO Josh Greenblatt also took aim at the View host, tweeting that the Holocaust was about “Nazi’s systematic annihilation of the Jewish people – who they deemed to be an inferior race” and used “racist propaganda to justify slaughtering 6 million Jews,” while stressing that “Holocaust distortion is dangerous.”