Whoopi Goldberg, Jews, and White Privilege

The hate and bile coming at Whoopi Goldberg is a terrible sight to see. The statement Goldberg made that got all this started was rooted in a shallow understanding of race, Jews’ relationship to it, and the Holocaust. The response has been more of the same, albeit with different specifics.

Goldberg spoke out of ignorance and stepped into a controversy she was not prepared for. She was trying to make a point on a subject she simply does not know much about. And that point, contrary to what most of her critics (and many of her supporters as well) are saying, is complex and nuanced, right or wrong.

To look at Whoopi herself first, it is important to note that even the man who, more than anyone in the world, jumps at every opportunity to smear people, especially those on the center-left or left, as antisemites, Jonathan Greenblatt, said she is no antisemite. Even he had to recognize that Whoopi had not said what she said out of malice. After her many years of support for the Jewish community, that should not even need to be said.

Whoopi saw the question of race through an American lens, and more particularly, an African-American lens. Both of those lenses define race as a question primarily of skin color and other physical attributes. And that is part of what makes this issue so tricky.