Jewish Group

Whoopi Goldberg Doubles Down on Antisemitic Comments, Insists Holocaust 'Wasn't Originally' About Race

The holidays are supposed to be a nauseatingly cheerful time of year, but the Jews couldn’t make it through eight celebratory days of Hanukkah without being interrupted by antisemitic hate. My people, in fact, enjoyed just five full days of candle-lighting and prayer-reciting before that streak was brought to a halt by repeat antisemitic offender Whoopi Goldberg.

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Setting aside the “big old stinky dump” remark, it’s important to understand that while Goldberg herself is part of intersecting oppressed minority groups as a Black woman in America, her assertion that the Holocaust wasn’t about race echoes the same messaging employed by white supremacists and neo-Nazis today.

“Germans considered themselves the ‘master race’ and claimed all other non-Aryans were inferior. This is a trope we still hear echoed by white supremacists in the U.S. today,” the ADL’s Greenblatt continued in his statement responding to Goldberg’s latest comments. “In a moment when antisemitic incidents have surged across the US, [Goldberg] should realize that making such ignorant statements can have real consequences.”

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The fact that Goldberg felt she had the authority to suddenly revisit her take on the Holocaust does not exist in a vacuum. Donald Trump and a growing legion of alt-right apologist Republicans began reintroducing coded antisemitism into politics long before the 2016 election, with some even going so far as to recently publicly evoke Hitler himself. With the implosion of Kanye West came the collision of pop culture, politics, and white supremacy, and along with it, the mainstreaming of antisemitic hate and white nationalist conspiracy theories inflating Jewish power (The Jews own Hollywood! The Jews control the banks!).

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