Whoopie Goldberg is a racist now

Ray Palmer · 01-02-2022 04:35PM #1

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60209527

I for a long time have felt that the americanisation of discussion heavily tanints the western view of racism. Here we have Whoppie Goldberg say she only ever thought racism could be based on skin colour. When Jeremy Clarkson made a racist comment and hit his producer people in Ireland claimed it wasn't racist because we aren't a race. The general ignorance of people is quite shocking. Most people would have said Whoopie would understand racism but I would always question why any person would understand racism of another country. Ireland in particular has a complicated relationship with discrimination where many claim it is just sectarian when religion was really just the identifier to know where you come from and whether you were British or Irish. Race includes cultural differences and we have a problem with racism with Travelers which people often ignore. What would your average American know about such racism?

NSAman · 01-02-2022 04:43PM

Live by the sword, die by the sword. That’s the saying isn’t it?

01-02-2022 04:46PM

Ah Whoopie's alright. She's made a few howlers over the years and she's said some good things as well.

From her side it's a semantic point and she accepted what she was told and apologised. There's basically no story here.

silliussoddius · 01-02-2022 04:52PM

Race isn't so black and white.

Ray Palmer · 01-02-2022 04:54PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118566147#Comment_118566147

Do you really think she only heard about the Nazis yesterday and then was corrected and she changed her mind now? From her point it was semantic but it isn't even close and requires willful ignorance. I do not think she changed her mind just that her view upset people so she apologised.

01-02-2022 04:56PM

Whoopie is always getting up to semantics.

dxhound2005 · 01-02-2022 05:01PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118566138#Comment_118566138

The original is from the Bible, where Jesus is rebuking a disciple for cutting off the ear of a servant of the High Priest. There are various translations of the original Greek and Latin. "His" here would read "Its" today. Also versions were in use in ancient Greece.

Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

CrookedJack · 01-02-2022 06:06PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118566207#Comment_118566207

So you're saying her point was... Anti-semantic?

Quantum Erasure · 01-02-2022 06:34PM

Jumpin' jack Flash!

Apiarist · 01-02-2022 06:59PM

So you all agree with Hitler, who stated that Jews are a race?

Personally, I agree with Goldberg, the Holocaust is an example of the inhumanity to others. In particular, the inhumanity which stems from the artificial division of people into "desirable" and "undesirable" categories. A lunatic in power can declare cyclists to be a race that needs to be exterminated, it does not mean that it's a truth.

silliussoddius · 01-02-2022 07:09PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118566816#Comment_118566816

Yeah, it was a case of someone determining races. She wasn't trying to downplay what happened or delve into denial nonsense. Race is in the eye of the beholder, Victorian English didn't have a nice attitude to their fellow white Irish, or the DUP to their white papist brethren. Some people within a race are more equal than others.

AllForIt · 01-02-2022 07:21PM

Arn't surnames that end in berg of Jewish origin, like Zuckerberg, Spielberg. So you'd think someone with a surname of Goldberg would.....oh never mind.

01-02-2022 07:32PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118566207#Comment_118566207

Did she deny the events? Or was she making the (until recently fairly accepted but now apparently hate-crime) idea that killing due to religion rather than skin colour isn't quite the same as racism based on skin colour.

She didn't suggest there was no systematic slaughter of the Jews or that the Nazis weren't trying to eradicate them.

She was talking about the semantics around the discussion behind the reasoning of the Nazi's plans. I've spent a stupid amount of time reading about the war and the holocaust (and still have huge blindspots) and am still trying to find some kind of thread of logic through some of it (because some just makes no sense even within the parameters of the time). All she did was try make (again, until recently a pretty acceptable at least) the point that racism and religious discrimination aren't the same thing. She may very well not know the fractions defined in purity laws. She may even know some Jews (imagine!) and know about traditionally it passes down the mother's side so just assumed it was that way.

Or she just knows what 90% of people (maybe less considering the holocaust deniers) know which is that the Nazis tried to wipe out the Jews. Jews are a religious group so it follows (in common parlance) it was sectarian/religious rather than racial.

But yeah, it's really a non-story.

Quantum Erasure · 01-02-2022 07:34PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118566921#Comment_118566921

I was going to say, Goldberg sounds like something you'd come up with if you wanted to make up a stereotypical jewish name, ...

About her stage surname, she claimed in 2011, "My mother did not name me Whoopi, but Goldberg is my name—it's part of my family, part of my heritage, just like being black", and "I just know I am Jewish. I practice nothing. I don't go to temple, but I do remember the holidays."[16] She has stated that "people would say 'Come on, are you Jewish?' And I always say 'Would you ask me that if I was white? I bet not.'"[16] One account recalls that her mother, Emma Johnson, thought the family's original surname was "not Jewish enough" for her daughter to become a star.[16] Researcher Henry Louis Gates Jr. found that all of Goldberg's traceable ancestors were African Americans, that she had no known German or Jewish ancestry, and that none of her ancestors were named Goldberg

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

AllForIt · 01-02-2022 09:31PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118566990#Comment_118566990

I was going to say, Goldberg sounds like something you'd come up with if you wanted to make up a stereotypical jewish name, ...

Yeah, especially the Gold part. God forgive me for making Jewish jokes in a racism thread.

Burt Renaults · 01-02-2022 09:36PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118566921#Comment_118566921

Yes, Goldberg definitely sounds like one of them Jew names.

AllForIt · 01-02-2022 09:48PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118567623#Comment_118567623

Jew-ish

McGinniesta · 01-02-2022 10:32PM

Oddly, this comment will do more to finish her career than any lack of talent or output.

McGinniesta · 01-02-2022 10:32PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118567623#Comment_118567623

She chose that name. That isnt her birth name.

TooTired123 · 01-02-2022 11:15PM

What a thumping bore she is. She knows in her heart that she’s outstayed her welcome in the public eye. She’s got many more years out of her career then her talent actually warranted through Making these kind of outrageous statements. This latest stunt just exposes her lack of education and inability to think rationally. Im glad we on this side of the pond aren’t having her shoved down our throats as she is in the UK.

Fitz II · 01-02-2022 11:19PM

zv2 · 02-02-2022 10:41AM

This is what happens when mere presenters and actors think they are professors just because the spotlight is on them. Leave it to the professionals Whoopie.

iffandonlyif · 02-02-2022 10:49AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058230804/whoopie-goldberg-is-a-racist-now

‘When Jeremy Clarkson made a racist comment and hit his producer people in Ireland claimed it wasn't racist because we aren't a race. The general ignorance of people is quite shocking.’

You say that as though it’s since been settled that it was racist. I continue to believe it embarrassing to call it racist.

is_that_so · 02-02-2022 10:49AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118566979#Comment_118566979

Considering how high profile the question of race is in the US, this does seem a little bit myopic. As a seasoned presenter it should have been obvious to her but personal perceptions of race issues can really narrow how people view the world. For the network it's not a non-story and it's a pretty dumb comment to make anywhere but at least she's got two weeks holidays!

Danzy · 02-02-2022 10:55AM

Whoopi has form with anti semitism.

Nice to see her called out finally.

On a less kind note I thought she was proposition Joe when I saw her recent photo.

timmyntc · 02-02-2022 11:10AM

She's right though - "Jewish" is not a race, its a religion. Its as much a race as Catholic or Atheist are (they are not).

Funny how nobody ever questioned her faking being Jewish to get ahead in Hollywood for all the years, but they do latch onto this comment. Makes you wonder if theres any truth in that particular myth

seamus · 02-02-2022 11:35AM

She made a pretty rookie mistake, especially for an American. You're not allowed be remotely negative about Israel or depict World War 2 as anything else except Hitler -v- Jews, or you'll be accused of anti-Semitism.

She's correct to say that the holocaust wasn't just about the Jews. Anyone the Nazis deemed inferior - Jewish or otherwise - were massacred. Like she says, the core point is about how cruel humanity can be to itself, using any nonsense basis on which to justify it.

I mean, I guess she's wrong to say it's not about "race", when it was based on nationalism and belief that Aryans were a superior "race". But that's not really the key element. Any group of people can call themselves (or someone else) a "race" and use that to justify division and brutality.

is_that_so · 02-02-2022 11:39AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118569485#Comment_118569485

It is both and they were seen as a race in Europe for 1000 years or more. They also often had special rules and the power that having money brings, which in tandem with what their race being blamed for Christ's demise was at the root of why they were targeted down the ages. Nowadays it is more about the faith but it's generally better to acknowledge both.

Pawwed Rig · 02-02-2022 11:42AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118567913#Comment_118567913

Is that not cultural appropriation?

Ray Palmer · 02-02-2022 11:43AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118569485#Comment_118569485

Look up the definition of racism and you will see very clearly "race" is not the only element of it. It isn't up for debate it has a definition. Can you look at Telly Savalas and say he doesn't look Jewish? Jewish is an ethnoreligious group where both religion and ethnicity are combined.

She has been called out on it before many times and it is even mentioned on her Wikipedia page.

Cookiemunster · 02-02-2022 11:47AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118569619#Comment_118569619

Do you mean the Greek/American Telly Savalas who was Greek Orthodox Christian? I'd say you could definitely look at him and say he didn't look Jewish because he wasn't.

Whoopie Goldberg is a racist now

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