Joe Rogan Doesn’t Get Cancelled, But Whoopee Goldberg Does?
What Is Racism?
Joe Rogan Doesn’t Get Cancelled, But Whoopee Goldberg Does?
Tucker Carlson stays on the air, but Jeff Zucker resigns? Representatives Paul Gosar, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz all serve in the House of Representatives, but Senator Al Franken is forced to resign for being a jerky comedian years before being elected, while being a very competent Senator?
Donald Trump promises if reelected, he will pardon the Jan 6th insurrectionists, reminding us again that he won’t go away no matter how many scandals he creates and how many norms and even laws he violates.
What all these and many more that I could add have in common is that the morality police of the left are way too fond of cancelling, and their cohorts on the right prefer to obfuscate, deny, or excuse. They are both guilty of lacking judgement and perspective, each in their own way.
Having said all of that and I am sure raising a host of disagreement from the entire spectrum of my readers who can now bash me from the right and the left, I want to talk about the Whoopi Goldberg story on the View.
If you are the one or two people who haven’t heard the story, Whoopi in a discussion about the Holocaust, said that the killing of 6 million was not an act of racism but an example of man’s inhumanity to man. Why was it not racism? Because Jews are white and therefore not a different race than Caucasians and as such the Nazis did not kill them for racist reasons but just white on white hate. She illuminated this argument with the hypothetical that if the KKK was marching down a street and a Jew and a black man were standing side by side, the Klan would pass right by the Jew who they could not identify and attack the black man. Why? Because Jews are white and not identifiable by color. Ergo hating Jews is not racism.
The story takes on added irony after a video emerged of a Nazi demonstration this week in Orlando where after seeing an Israeli decal on a passing license plate of a Jewish UCF student, the Klansmen attacked him, kicked him and pepper sprayed him.
Technically Whoopi is correct. Jews are not a race. Have you met Ethiopian Jews? Have you met Mizrachi Jews who form the majority of the population of Israel? Have you met converts to Judaism of all colors and races?
(I am preparing another blog about the growing population of Black Jews that most of us know nothing about).
So why were her remarks so quickly condemned? Because you can be correct and ignorant at the same time and unfortunately, she was.
The holocaust did not happen to Jews because one white group wanted to be inhumane to another white group, it happened because the Nazis were racists who believed the Jews were a race, but an inferior one that needed to be eliminated lest they pollute the blond haired, blue eyed pure Aryan race. Never in the history of the world have so many been killed in such an organized and efficient way for the sole purpose of eliminating what was perceived to be an inferior race.
As such and all thanks to the Nazis’ definition, this was THE racist attack of all time. So why didn’t Whoopi get it? Ignorance of the facts? Possibly, but more likely she was caught in a box that sees racism as a matter of color only. Jews are white and therefore enjoy white privilege. If along the way they are attacked, it is man’s inhumanity to man and therefore to be criticized and condemned but not because this group can be hated just because of whom the group is. This is the opinion of many on the left that the needs of all the oppressed because of their skin, or sexual orientation or gender, intersect in a common cause, but that cannot include Jews because they are successful and privileged and white. This extends to why so many of these groups are anti-Israel. If Jews are white and privileged, so is their one and only country and therefore Israel is a colonial power oppressing the brown men called Palestinians. History and facts are irrelevant, it is to them as clear as black and white, (pun intended).
Whoopi is absolutely not an antisemite. She has long, positive, and demonstrable connections to the Jewish people. She has done much good for the poor and underprivileged over the years and is a great comedian, actress, and a special character on Star Trek. She apologized and invited the director of the ADL to appear on her show the next day. Clearly, she has the need to learn more and to weigh her words more carefully, but she is also a victim of the zeitgeist, that in her political world rushes to cancel.
There was no need for such a punitive response. This was the ultimate teaching moment that could have brought the African American community and their historical allies, the Jewish people, to better understand each other and to reinforce their shared vulnerability in America. Ironically it is white supremacists who see Jews and blacks and gays as common targets without needing to parse the word, racists.
If white supremacists want to eliminate the Jews and the Blacks and the gays, isn’t that enough to call all that hate , Racism?