Whoopi Goldberg really stepped in it on The View earlier this week when she said that the Holocaust was “not about race” but rather about “man’s inhumanity to man.”
Let’s establish right off the bat–she is wrong. More on that in a minute.
What could she be thinking? My guess is that in her mind European Jews and Aryan Germans are both white, therefore it wasn’t really about race. Perhaps also, the Nazis murdered a lot of non-Jews, so it wasn’t like they were just picking on one group because of their race or ethnic background; they seemed to have hate enough to go around. I get it. I can see why her mind went there.
This is not antisemitism. It is error. And I suspect it may be an error that black Americans are especially susceptible to. After all, they know race. They live under its consequences every day of their lives. And for them, race is almost completely delineated by outward appearances. But it was not so in Nazi Germany. She’s taking a distinctly American view of race and applying it to a setting where it is inaccurate.
I don’t believe Whoopi Goldberg’s statement had an ounce of malice in it. Nor do I think she was in any way minimizing the horrors of the Holocaust. She was simply wrong on the underlying motivations and justifications for it.
She was wrong in a material way that is important to call out. If we do not understand the motivations behind the Holocaust how can we possibly guard against those same motivations arising in the future? We can’t. So it’s important to get it right.
Yes, the Holocaust was about race. It’s easy to fact check this–just ask the Nazis. They weren’t confused on this point. What said they were doing was elevating their race above, and protecting themselves from, others. They did this because they believed that their race was superior and others were inferior, to the point of being subhuman.
Just because they targeted both Jews and Roma does not mean they were in any way race neutral. Far from it. Just because they murdered people with disabilities and homosexuals doesn’t mean their actions weren’t about race. They were. They said so quite clearly. They targeted other ethnic groups and those deemed “impure” precisely to elevate and protect their own superior race.
Whoopi doesn’t deserve to be fired. (At least not for this.)She has apologized and it seemed pretty sincere to my ear. Does she deserve a two week suspension? Eh. I feel even that might be a little harsh. One good thing, though, is that this whole incident has created a teachable moment for all of us.