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Whoopi Goldberg issues 'sincere' apology after claiming Holocaust was 'not about race'

'The Holocaust isn’t about race. No, it’s not about race,' Goldberg said repeatedly. 'It’s about man’s inhumanity to man'

Co-host Whoopi Goldberg is under fire for insisting that the Holocaust was “not about race" on ABC's 'The View'. During a discussion on a Tennessee school banning the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel 'Maus', which is about a Holocaust survivor, Goldberg said the genocide was not simply race-based. “The Holocaust isn’t about race. No, it’s not about race,” Goldberg, 66, said repeatedly. “It’s about man’s inhumanity to man.”

Quickly disagreeing, political strategist Ana Navarro said, "Well, it’s about white supremacy. That’s what it’s about. It’s about going after Jews and Gypsies.” “But these are two groups of white people,” insisted Goldberg. “You’re missing the point. The minute you turn it into race, it goes down this alley. Let’s talk about it for what it is. It’s how people treat each other. It’s a problem. It doesn’t matter if you’re black or white because black, white, Jews, Italians, everybody eats each other.”

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Goldberg continued, "If you hear about ‘Maus,’ should you be worried? Should your child say, ‘Oh my God, I wonder if that’s me’? No. That’s not what they’re going to say. They’re going to say, ‘I don’t want to be like that.’” During the brief discussion, Joy Behar noted that the Nazis indeed considered Jewish people to be 'a different race'. 

'It's insidious'

Internet erupted after Goldberg's comments, with social media users claiming she simply failed to understand history. "Wow, @WhoopiGoldberg is so wrong on this - the failure of understanding our history is one of the reasons why Anti-Semitism is still growing like a cancer - prejudice and hate in all its forms must be extinguished and called out," one user wrote. "Whoopi Goldberg explaining that the Holocaust wasn't about race because these were "two groups of white people" isn't just insipid, it's insidious. It's downplaying the minority status of Jews in order to uphold bul***** intersectional arguments that justify anti-Semitism today," another said. 

" I am a Holocaust survivor in NYC. I might be 88-years-old but I have the energy to come on your show and talk to @WhoopiGoldberg and all the girls about the Holocaust. I think we can have a meaningful conversation together and heal wounds. DM me!" one user said. "@WhoopiGoldberg is a fu***** idiot. I mean, what else is there to say?. Her comments on the Holocaust are beyond tone deaf. Just plain stupid as all hell. Let’s see what ABC @TheView
does about this. I predict absolutely nothing…," commenting another user. One user said, "She said the holocaust wasn’t about race. But it was. There’s no way to spin this she was 100% wrong. She even came out and said she stands corrected".

Whoopi Goldberg apologizes

Following the backlash, Goldberg took to Twitter to express her "sincerest apologies". In an image post, Goldberg wrote, "On today’s show, I said the Holocaust ‘is not about race, but about man’s inhumanity to man.’ I should have said it is about both. As Jonathan Greenblatt from the Anti-Defamation League shared, ‘The Holocaust was about the Nazi’s systematic annihilation of the Jewish people — who they deemed to be an inferior race.’ I stand corrected. The Jewish people around the world have always had my support and that will never waiver. I’m sorry for the hurt I have caused. Written with my sincerest apologies, Whoopi Goldberg”.

Goldberg's comments come at a time when the United States is witnessing a rise of anti-Semitic attacks. The American Jewish Committee’s findings say that in 2021 alone, one in four Jewish Americans were subject to anti-Semitic behavior.