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Whoopi Goldberg suspended from ‘The View’ over Holocaust remarks

by Caroline Vakil and Dominick Mastrangelo

Whoopi Goldberg has been suspended from ABC’s “The View” for two weeks following her comments on the Holocaust.

“Effective immediately, I am suspending Whoopi Goldberg for two weeks for her wrong and hurtful comments. While Whoopi has apologized, I’ve asked her to take time to reflect and learn about the impact of her comments,” Kim Godwin, president of ABC News, said in a statement.

“The entire ABC News organization stands in solidarity with our Jewish colleagues, friends, family and communities,” she added. 

The announcement followed one day after Goldberg told her co-hosts on the show that the Holocaust was “not about race” as they were discussing the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel “Maus” and the decision to remove it by a Tennessee school board from a curriculum for eighth grade language arts.

“If you’re going to do this, then let’s be truthful about it,” Goldberg said on Monday during the discussion. “Because the Holocaust isn’t about race. No, it’s not about race.”

Asked by co-host Joy Behar what the Holocaust was about, Goldberg responded, “It’s about man’s inhumanity to man.”

“That’s what it’s about,” she added.

Following an interjection from another co-host, Ana Navarro, who said the Holocaust was about “going after Jews and gypsies,” Goldberg pushed back again.
 
“But these are two groups of white people,” Goldberg cut in. “But 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 … everybody eats each other.” 
 
Goldberg later apologized on social media after she received backlash for the comments.
 
“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 sympathetic annihilation of the Jewish people – who they deemed the inferior race.’ I stand corrected,” she said in a statement posted to Twitter.
 
“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,” she added.
 
The move comes several months after she signed a contract to stay on with “The View” for at least four more years. Goldberg has been with the program for 15 seasons so far. 

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