ABC News President Kim Godwin has elected to publicly discipline The View host Whoopi Goldberg. Citing Goldberg’s recent comments about the Holocaust, Godwin announced that Goldberg’s punishment will include a two week departure from The View and all other ABC programming.
“Effective immediately, I am suspending Whoopi Goldberg for two weeks for her wrong and hurtful comments,” Godwin stated.
“While Whoopi has apologized, I’ve asked her to take time to reflect and learn about the impact of her comments. The entire ABC News organization stands in solidarity with our Jewish colleagues, friends, family and communities.”
Whoopi Goldberg has faced backlash regarding comments she made during an episode of The View on Monday. While discussing a Tennessee school board’s decision to ban a book informs students about the horrific historical event, Goldberg said the Holocaust wasn’t “about race.”
“Let’s be truthful about it because [the] Holocaust isn’t about race,” she said.
“It’s not about race. It’s about man’s inhumanity to man.”
Shortly after Goldberg appeared on The View, Anti-Defamation League and the U.S. Holocaust Museum issued statements regarding her comments.
“The Holocaust was about the Nazi’s systemic annihilation of the Jewish people — who they deemed to be an inferior race,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt told Variety.
“They dehumanized them and used their racist propaganda to justify slaughtering 6 million Jews. Holocaust distortion is dangerous.”
One day later, Goldberg appeared on The View and apologized.
“So yesterday on our show, I misspoke,” Goldberg said, according to Variety.
“I said that the Holocaust wasn’t about race and it was instead about man’s inhumanity to man. But it is indeed about race, because Hitler and the Nazis considered the Jews to be an inferior race. Now, words matter and mine are no exception. I regret my comments as I said and I stand corrected. I also stand with the Jewish people, as they know, and as you all know because I’ve always done that.”
