My Take on Whoopi’s “Whoops”

Is ABC right to punish Whoopi Goldberg for stating her view on “The View”?

I watched the episode where Whoopi stepped in it on live TV. In case you missed it, here is what she said about the Holocaust that created an uproar:

Yes, her statement surprised me, especially how emphatic she was while saying it. The Holocaust wasn’t about race? Really?

I most certainly didn’t agree with her, and I did wonder why her co-hosts didn’t protest more vehemently when she said it. But then it wasn’t the first time I disagreed with any of the opinions expressed by the co-hosts or guests on The View. The differences in opinion were a large part of what drew me to the talk show in the first place.

But what I naively didn’t anticipate was the tsunami-sized backlash Whoopi received from viewers, the Jewish community, advocacy groups, and members of the media (including a number of agitated podcasters).

After all, the show is called “The View,” right? Wasn’t she just expressing hers?

Upon receiving the blowback, Whoopi took to Twitter, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and The View itself to apologize and, unfortunately during her conversation with Colbert, to try and clarify her perspective, which only piqued those who didn’t agree with her even more.

“Words matter,” she said in a prepared statement the next day, “and mine are no exception. I regret my comments…and I stand corrected.”

Still, the network that has carried the talk show since its inception 25 years ago suspended Whoopi for two weeks. “While Whoopi has apologized, I’ve asked her to take time to reflect and learn about the impact of her comments,” ABC News President Kim Godwin said in a statement.

So the show must go on without her, but it has done so before in recent months (when she was sidelined for several days with sciatica and after testing positive for COVID). I’m sure the other cohosts will do just fine.

But will this remain a temporary suspension or turn into a permanent termination? As of right now, that remains to be seen. Because what this really boils down to is whether Whoopi’s popularity can outlast the network’s fear of losing viewers and advertisers.

That’s my take.

Of course, what she said about the Holocaust not being about race was incorrect. The Nazis systematically annihilated six million Jews, as well as millions more members of other races that they deemed inferior to theirs.

But as she tried to explain to Stephen Colbert, the 66-year-old Black woman had always viewed racism as something based on skin color, because that had been her experience. In fact, she had considered the Holocaust to be “white-on-white” crime — not any less evil than it actually was, but from a different, and certainly naive, perspective. She misunderstood the Holocaust but did not underestimate the horror of it. She had referred to it as “Man’s inhumanity to man,” which it most definitely was.

I believe her when she said she had not meant her opinion to be hurtful or malicious, and mourn that we have come to a point where simply expressing one’s opinion, no matter how erroneous, could potentially cost someone her job. Especially on a show where voicing opinions is the program’s bread and butter.

Has “cancel culture” truly run amuck? If so, won’t we all suffer from fear of voicing thoughts that others may not like, or even passionately disagree with, and miss opportunities to learn from other viewpoints that we may not have considered?

Where do we draw the line between cancel culture and freedom of speech? Or have we already crossed it?

I’ll let you be the judge. But for me, I don’t like the direction our society is taking on this issue.

I do hope Whoopi uses her time off (or as Bill Maher scathingly referred to it, “time out”) to learn about the atrocities that have occurred against Jews over many centuries, and not just by Nazi Germany. She will be a better person as a result.

I also hope that she does return to “the table” at the end of her two-week suspension. I hope ABC will decide to weather the maelstrom, and maybe even use this incident as a springboard for providing educational programming on the history of anti-Semitism, as it has done with its excellent “Women of the Movement” and “Soul of a Nation” docuseries on racism towards people of color.

After all, like Whoopi Goldberg, I believe that the more we learn about each other, the better all of us will be as a result.