Whoopi Goldberg Says The Holocaust Was "Not About Race"

[GMDino]

(02-03-2022, 12:42 PM)BFritz21 Wrote: He's just trying to shift the blame and take the attention off of Whoopi. That was my point.

That's what I meant by "blame."

He didn't shift anything.  He said there are people, republicans, who agree with the wrong thing she said.

Your "point" was wrong by using the word "blame".  

[*Nately120*]

(02-03-2022, 12:55 PM)GMDino Wrote: He didn't shift anything.  He said there are people, republicans, who agree with the wrong thing she said.

Your "point" was wrong by using the word "blame".  

Right, my point is that she said something so anti Semitic that it echos and possibly gained favor wirh the neo Nazis and alt right.  Calling this "typical Democrat" behavior is off base to the point of farce. 

At any rate, the OP called out some one for being offensively anti Semitic, but is clear the issue is that the anti Semite is a Democrat, not because being dismissive of the racial aspects of the holocaust is offensively ignorant. 

To put it more diplomatically, I'd say he's right for the wrong reasons. 

[Housh]

Is Jewish a race?

I understand what Jewish ppl are saying. They were shit on for being Jewish. Not for being white. She just shouldnt have said anything.

I do respect her for being mad at her suspension. What she said was historically inaccurate but it wasnt worth suspension.

[*Nately120*]

(02-03-2022, 02:27 PM)Housh Wrote: Is Jewish a race?

Judaism is an ethno religion...a specific term I learned of due the to this situation.  I think they're pretty much the only major group that falls into that category, but they aren't the only ones. 

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(02-03-2022, 02:46 PM)Nately120 Wrote: Judaism is an ethno religion...a specific term I learned of due the to this situation.  I think they're pretty much the only major group that falls into that category, but they aren't the only ones. 

They have distinct genetic differences from native Europeans.  If you take a DNA test they will be specific as to what region of Europe you have genetic ancestry for as well as Ashkenazi Jewish, if you have any, obviously.  I'm clearly speaking solely about people of European ancestry, but it holds true for other regions as well.

[basballguy]

(02-03-2022, 10:05 AM)Nately120 Wrote: Im pretty sure every republican is in Dallas drinking their own piss and bleach and waiting for JFK Jr and Michael Jackson to arrest Tom Hanks and save the universe from baby eating liberal commies from Mars.  

Sir i only drink bleach, not piss.

[NATI BENGALS]

I'm hearing Whoopi is going to get the SCOTUS nom from Biden for these remarks

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(02-03-2022, 06:20 PM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: I'm hearing Whoopi is going to get the SCOTUS nom from Biden for these remarks

Ahaha, I legit laughed at this, well done.  

[BmorePat87]

There was a perfect oppurtunity for the entire board to come together and agree that Whoopi is a piece of shit...

would have been a slam dunk thread...

Anyways, glad to see her off the air. Given its recent news coverage, I recommend that anyone who hasn't read Maus go read it. Our family copy sits on a bookshelf in our living room. It's an amazing and powerful piece of literature.

[BigPapaKain]

I mean I haven't paid any attention to this whole scenario, but given that even my cursory knowledge of it shows that she's been on blast since it happened makes me wonder who exactly isn't condemning her? Because I've seen zero defense of her pretty much anywhere.

[Arturo Bandini]

There is actually no race in humans beings, we are not dogs.

The point is that extremist people were pointing their hate to jews people pretending they were a 'different' race to hurt them, spoil them, kill them while they are not because there is no human races.

That's all the subtility of extremists whoever they are.

[Dill]

(02-02-2022, 07:35 PM)BFritz21 Wrote: I'm surprised she was suspended for this, considering truth isn't really too important to the left, but, in one of the most surprising comments, even for her, Whoopi Goldberg said the Holocaust "was not about race."

Like I've said, the Democratic party will destroy itself because, with no set of standards and no objective realities, you can't have any solid base for your party.

This was one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard and I'm glad that people finally took a stand against her but I'm wondering how long it will last.

Two questions relating to the bolded: 

1. If it's a good thing to take Whoopi off the air for claiming the Holocaust was really about general "inhumanity" rather than race, then what do you make of that Tennessee schoolboard which banned Maus from its curriculum?  Was that a good thing too? 

Looks like ignorance of the history of white supremacy is what led Whoopi to assume Nazis saw Jews as "white." And teaching people/students more about that history would be a corrective, wouldn't it?    

2. Do you believe that Biden stole the election from Trump?  

If "yes," then I'd like to know what basis in "objective realities" and what "standards" lead you to that conclusion.

If "no," then how on earth can you claim that the Dems are the party with "standards" and its "the left" for whom the truth isn't really important?

I ask this because, drawing on the history of modern political parties, one can certainly find examples of "solid bases" formed around beliefs which are quite far from "objective reality."  Lack thereof is no predictor of whether a party will have a solid base. I might be the opposite.

[Dill]

(02-03-2022, 02:27 PM)Housh Wrote: Is Jewish a race?

I understand what Jewish ppl are saying. They were shit on for being Jewish. Not for being white. She just shouldnt have said anything.

I do respect her for being mad at her suspension. What she said was historically inaccurate but it wasnt worth suspension.

"Jewish" was a race to the Nazis, who had a rather elaborate system for classifying virtually human groups according to anatomical differences. 
Jews were persecuted in Germany for hundreds of years on religious grounds. It was not until the late 19th century that "Jewishness" was articulated to race, and it was as a "race" that they were defined and assigned to perdition by the NAZIs.

Biologists and geneticists today don't think there is really any such thing as "race." (Arturo already made this point.)

Drawing "racial" lines between human groups is like saying that white German shepards are a distinct species from brown German shepherds, or that the white are somehow more essentially German Shepherd than the brown. Human groups have long used similar distinctions to classify each other, though all such are not "racist" in the usual 19th-20th century usage. "Leftists" and some liberals have challenged that racism since the 19th century, but it continues to serve as a useful classification for political purposes.

[Dill]

(02-03-2022, 10:57 AM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: On the left, there are two things that you, ideally, want to avoid when discussing the oppression that certain minorities of people have experienced from the government and/or the "elites" of any given country during any given time period.

1. A class reductionist
2. A race reductionist . . .

I am not calling Whoopi a race reductionist, because I don't know her or most of her stances or beliefs other than what she has said openly, but I do think the left kind of has a bias when it comes to race that it must only apply to people who are visually a minority. If something happens to a group of people who look like white people, such as many Jews do, by people who also look like white people, I think a fair number of people on the left would say it isn't racism, it's just hatred. They even go as far as trying to re-define words to make their points. For example, have you ever heard someone say "Black people can't be racist. They can only be prejudice. Because racism is inherently driven by a power dynamic" or something along those lines? That is a race reductionist line of thinking. They re-define racism to mean the same thing as "systemic racism" as a way to forgive black people if they say or do something racist. It's a kind of hierarchical thinking that I believe should be removed from the left and given back to the right, where it belongs.

With all that said, I don't think Whoopi said this with any malice or ill intent. I just think she was ignorant to the Nazis' ideology and, in the moment, reverted to that "race is only a visual indicator" mindset that is ingrained pretty deeply in the left. She apologized and it seemed sincere and I assume she won't make that same mistake again.

C-Dawg, you makes some good points here, as usual, but I must quibble with the bolded.

"Just hatred" is not a leftist concept, and could play no role in materialist analyses of social conflict. 

All actual leftists whom I know, have read, or listened to were well versed in the history the holocaust, and know the German/European left opposed all forms of racism from the getgo, while the Right aided and abetted them. Rightists are happy to call any liberal who slips up on TV a "leftist" who represents the Dem party or some such. It's not clear why anyone should assume Goldberg speaks for or represents some articulable Dem/left philosophy of race. In this case, she sounds like a person who has long noted that, in the U.S., the visual difference between "white" and "Jewish" is pretty much non existent, in contrast to the difference between white and black. Lacking historical background, she made some guesses about what the Holocaust was "really" about. In this respect, she is not different from other celebrities who speak ignorantly from huge social platforms. The flap over Goldberg's comments are rather like what happens when some responds to BLM with the claim "All lives matter."  

Also, you refer to a strand of what might be called "vulgar" CRT, which I don't think is especially "leftist."  "Black people can't be racist" is often read by many whites to mean "Black people never do mean things persons of other races, and even if they do it isn't racism."  

Not sure what you mean by "race is only a visual indicator" as a "mindset that is ingrained pretty deeply in the left."

If you mean that actual leftists don't believe there is any biological basis for racial distinction, then you are correct.

If you mean that most actual leftists assume that NAZI persecution of Jews and Slavs and Gypsies wasn't about race to the NAZIs, that would be incorrect. 

[CJD]

(02-06-2022, 03:33 AM)Dill Wrote: C-Dawg, you makes some good points here, as usual, but I must quibble with the bolded.

"Just hatred" is not a leftist concept, and could play no role in materialist analyses of social conflict. 

All actual leftists whom I know, have read, or listened to were well versed in the history the holocaust, and know the German/European left opposed all forms of racism from the getgo, while the Right aided and abetted them. Rightists are happy to call any liberal who slips up on TV a "leftist" who represents the Dem party or some such. It's not clear why anyone should assume Goldberg speaks for or represents some articulable Dem/left philosophy of race. In this case, she sounds like a person who has long noted that, in the U.S., the visual difference between "white" and "Jewish" is pretty much non existent, in contrast to the difference between white and black. Lacking historical background, she made some guesses about what the Holocaust was "really" about. In this respect, she is not different from other celebrities who speak ignorantly from huge social platforms. The flap over Goldberg's comments are rather like what happens when some responds to BLM with the claim "All lives matter."  

Also, you refer to a strand of what might be called "vulgar" CRT, which I don't think is especially "leftist."  "Black people can't be racist" is often read by many whites to mean "Black people never do mean things persons of other races, and even if they do it isn't racism."  

Not sure what you mean by "race is only a visual indicator" as a "mindset that is ingrained pretty deeply in the left."

If you mean that actual leftists don't believe there is any biological basis for racial distinction, then you are correct.

If you mean that most actual leftists assume that NAZI persecution of Jews and Slavs and Gypsies wasn't about race to the NAZIs, that would be incorrect. 

Oh, to be clear, I'm basically never referring to actual leftism on this forum. People like Brad are so far to the right that Whoopi and her liberal ilk are basically the most left they can imagine without having nightmares of Stalin sending them to the gulag.

My entire point could most appropriately summed up as "ignorant Liberals being liberals. " But I just wanted to take a shot at reductionists in the process :)

Liberals play in identity politics so much that I think they create hierarchies in their head.

Women have it worse than men; black people have it worse than Latinos, who have it worse than Asian people, who have it worse than white people, etc.

While none of this is necessarily untrue, I think it leads some liberals to downplay some things, and, as a black woman, I think Whoopi did that here.

My comment about race only being a visual indicator is in that vein. She saw white people do something to other white people and assumed race or any other similar classification was not considered.

Sent from my SM-G986U using Tapatalk

[Dill]

(02-06-2022, 03:52 AM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: Women have it worse than men; black people have it worse than Latinos, who have it worse than Asian people, who have it worse than white people, etc.
While none of this is necessarily untrue, I think it leads some liberals to downplay some things, and, as a black woman, I think Whoopi did that here.
My comment about race only being a visual indicator is in that vein. She saw white people do something to other white people and assumed race or any other similar classification was not considered.

LOL liberals don't get the final say, though. Identity politics comes full circle when a majority of whites believe they suffer from racial discrimination in the US.

https://www.npr.org/2017/10/24/559604836/majority-of-white-americans-think-theyre-discriminated-against

A majority of whites say discrimination against them exists in America today, according to a poll released Tuesday from NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

"If you apply for a job, they seem to give the blacks the first crack at it," said 68-year-old Tim Hershman of Akron, Ohio, "and, basically, you know, if you want any help from the government, if you're white, you don't get it. If you're black, you get it."

More than half of whites — 55 percent — surveyed say that, generally speaking, they believe there is discrimination against white people in America today. Hershman's view is similar to what was heard on the campaign trail at Trump rally after Trump rally. Donald Trump catered to white grievance during the 2016 presidential campaign and has done so as president as well.

https://now.tufts.edu/news-releases/whites-believe-they-are-victims-racism-more-o

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. -- Whites believe that they have replaced blacks as the primary victims of racial discrimination in contemporary America, according to a new study from researchers at Tufts University's School of Arts and Sciences and Harvard Business School. The findings, say the authors, show that America has not achieved the "post-racial" society that some predicted in the wake of Barack Obama's election.

 Both whites and blacks agree that anti-black racism has decreased over the last 60 years, according to the study. However, whites believe that anti-white racism has increased and is now a bigger problem than anti-black racism....
 
"These data are the first to demonstrate that not only do whites think more progress has been made toward equality than do blacks, but whites also now believe that this progress is linked to a new inequality – at their expense," note Norton and Sommers. Whites see racial equality as a zero sum game, in which gains for one group mean losses for the other.
 
The belief that anti-white bias is more prevalent than anti-black bias has clear implications for future public policy debates and behavioral science research, say the authors. They note that claims of so-called reverse racism, while not new, have been at the core of an increasing number of high-profile Supreme Court cases.

[CJD]

(02-06-2022, 08:26 AM)Dill Wrote: LOL liberals don't get the final say, though. Identity politics comes full circle when a majority of whites believe they suffer from racial discrimination in the US.

https://www.npr.org/2017/10/24/559604836/majority-of-white-americans-think-theyre-discriminated-against

A majority of whites say discrimination against them exists in America today, according to a poll released Tuesday from NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

"If you apply for a job, they seem to give the blacks the first crack at it," said 68-year-old Tim Hershman of Akron, Ohio, "and, basically, you know, if you want any help from the government, if you're white, you don't get it. If you're black, you get it."

More than half of whites — 55 percent — surveyed say that, generally speaking, they believe there is discrimination against white people in America today. Hershman's view is similar to what was heard on the campaign trail at Trump rally after Trump rally. Donald Trump catered to white grievance during the 2016 presidential campaign and has done so as president as well.

https://now.tufts.edu/news-releases/whites-believe-they-are-victims-racism-more-o

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. -- Whites believe that they have replaced blacks as the primary victims of racial discrimination in contemporary America, according to a new study from researchers at Tufts University's School of Arts and Sciences and Harvard Business School. The findings, say the authors, show that America has not achieved the "post-racial" society that some predicted in the wake of Barack Obama's election.

 Both whites and blacks agree that anti-black racism has decreased over the last 60 years, according to the study. However, whites believe that anti-white racism has increased and is now a bigger problem than anti-black racism....
 
"These data are the first to demonstrate that not only do whites think more progress has been made toward equality than do blacks, but whites also now believe that this progress is linked to a new inequality – at their expense," note Norton and Sommers. Whites see racial equality as a zero sum game, in which gains for one group mean losses for the other.
 
The belief that anti-white bias is more prevalent than anti-black bias has clear implications for future public policy debates and behavioral science research, say the authors. They note that claims of so-called reverse racism, while not new, have been at the core of an increasing number of high-profile Supreme Court cases.

Yea...It's pretty nuts that some white people have convinced themselves that they're an oppressed minority haha.

I think people like Tucker Carlson are actively striving towards people believing that because it suits his agenda.

[Belsnickel]

(02-03-2022, 02:49 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: They have distinct genetic differences from native Europeans.  If you take a DNA test they will be specific as to what region of Europe you have genetic ancestry for as well as Ashkenazi Jewish, if you have any, obviously.  I'm clearly speaking solely about people of European ancestry, but it holds true for other regions as well.

Race isn't a genetic thing, though. I'd have to dig up the studies, but during a biological anthropology class we looked at the data showing there is more genetic variation within races than between them. Race is entirely a social construct based on observable differences that we then use to categorize. Thus, as was mentioned by Dill, Nazi Germany as a society defined Jews a race for their purposes, but they may not be defined as such in other societies.

More specifically, as Nate brought up, there is a Jewish ethnicity which is more about a group defined by cultural connections. Still not really about genetics, but fits the idea of the Jewish identity a bit more.

This is all just general commentary, I just used your post a jumping off point since you mentioned genetics. Also, this is based on the terms as used in the sciences, and specifically the social sciences. However, we all know that common usage doesn't always follow these conventions.

[BmorePat87]

(02-06-2022, 02:20 AM)Dill Wrote: "Jewish" was a race to the Nazis, who had a rather elaborate system for classifying virtually human groups according to anatomical differences. 
Jews were persecuted in Germany for hundreds of years on religious grounds. It was not until the late 19th century that "Jewishness" was articulated to race, and it was as a "race" that they were defined and assigned to perdition by the NAZIs.

Biologists and geneticists today don't think there is really any such thing as "race."  (Arturo already made this point.)

Drawing "racial" lines between human groups is like saying that white German shepards are a distinct species from brown German shepherds, or that the white are somehow more essentially German Shepherd than the brown. Human groups have long used similar distinctions to classify each other, though all such are not "racist" in the usual 19th-20th century usage.  "Leftists" and some liberals have challenged that racism since the 19th century, but it continues to serve as a useful classification for political purposes.

Yea, and to further comment, it wasn't even limited to Nazi Germany, too. On my wife's grandfather's immigration records (came to the US in the  early 30's from Lithuania with a stop in Britain), one of the logs lists his family as "Jewish" for their race.

Even today, many white supremacists groups don't consider Jewish people as part of the "white race", because as you explained, the concept of race isn't actually rooted in any science and has always been a social construct. 

[BFritz21]

What I want to know is how can you say it's not about race when Hitler started everything because, by his own words, he considered Jews an inferior race?