Topline
ABC has suspended Whoopi Goldberg as the co-host of the network’s talk show The View following her comment that the Holocaust was “not about race,” a statement that drew condemnation from several prominent Jewish leaders.
Key Facts
Announcing the suspension, ABC News President Kim Godwin said Goldberg will be suspended for two weeks for her “wrong and hurtful comments.”
Godwin noted that while Goldberg has apologized, she has been asked to take time to reflect and learn about the impact of her comments.
Goldberg made her controversial comment on Monday’s episode of The View where she said the Holocaust was “not about race ... it’s about man’s inhumanity to man.”
Following fierce backlash the comedian and talk show host apologized and acknowledged that she was misinformed and had misspoken.
Key Background
Goldberg made her original comments on Monday during a discussion about a Tennessee school board’s decision to ban Maus, a graphic novel about Nazi concentration camps during the second World War. Her comments were met with pushback from her co-host and one them noted that the Holocaust was driven by white supremacy, to which Goldberg responded: “But these are two white groups of people.” Goldberg, later on Monday, appeared on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert where she apologized and said that as a Black person, she thought of race as something “you can see.” On Tuesday, she apologized again at the start of The View and the show brought on Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, to discuss why Goldberg’s comments were considered harmful. Greenblatt pointed out that Hitler’s ideology was “predicated on the idea that the Aryans, the Germans were a quote, ‘master race,’ and the Jews were a subhuman race.” Greenblatt also urged the show to hire a Jewish host to help address issues like antisemitism in the future. The View is yet to hire a full time fifth host, a position that has remained vacant since Meghan McCain left the show last year.
Further Reading
ABC suspends Whoopi Goldberg over Holocaust race remarks (Associated Press)
ABC Suspends Whoopi Goldberg Over Holocaust Comments (New York Times)
