Source: Nina Westervelt / Getty
Earlier this month, The View host Whoopi Goldberg addressed past comments about race and the Holocaust.
According to Deadline, Whoopi Goldberg made the comments while doing press for the movie Till where she plays the mother of Mamie Till-Mobley.
“My best friend said, ‘Not for nothing is there no box on the census for the Jewish race. So that leads me to believe that we’re probably not a race,’” she said in the interview with the Sunday Times, which was published during Hanukkah.
The comments were a callback to comments the Sister Act actor made at the top of 2022 where she said that “Nazis saw Jews as a race.”
Sheadded, “Yes, but that’s the killer, isn’t it? The oppressor is telling you what you are. Why are you believing them? They’re Nazis. Why believe what they’re saying?”
She continued: “It wasn’t originally [about race]. Remember who they were killing first. They were not killing racial; they were killing physical. They were killing people they considered to be mentally defective. And then they made this decision.”
After continued pushback from the Anti-Defamation League, Goldberg issued a statement on the subject saying, “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.”
She added, “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.”
Goldberg concluded, “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.”
