There are two important issues here. The first concerns the ideological basis for the Nazi extermination of the Jews during the Holocaust. The second is about censoring or silencing people who disagree with whatever the societal or scholarly judgement is on the first issue. ABC suspended Whoopi Goldberg because its’ head honchos didn’t appreciate her statement that “The Holocaust isn’t about race.” But in no way was she defending Nazis. Rather, she expressed a different interpretation of Nazi motivation for mass murder.
I suggest that even if the Holocaust was about race, Whoopi should not have been suspended for disagreeing with that analysis. And do we really want to accept Nazi racial definitions? If they believed in a superior Aryan race and an inferior Semitic race, shouldn’t we still have the intellectual freedom in America today to disagree with or to outright dismiss their supposed racial distinctions – distinctions they used to justify killing six million Jews?
Are Jews a race? Is there a Semitic race? I’m no social scientist, but I don’t believe that “Semite” is a current item on the generally-accepted list of races. And if Jews are not a race, then doesn’t it follow that Whoopi was right in saying “The Holocaust isn’t about race”?
It seems to me that Jews are better defined as a people, not a race. And that “peoplehood” has religious, ethnic, linguistic, geographical, cultural, and other dimensions to it. Was the Holocaust aimed at Jews? Absolutely. But if the Nazis called Jews a race, does that make Jews a race? Of course not! So Jews could say, to paraphrase Whoopi, that the Holocaust was predicated on the Nazis’ misguided belief that Jews are a race, an inferior race.
Whoopi Goldberg is NOT the enemy of the Jews! Those Nazi bastards were the enemies. And today’s neo-Nazis are enemies. Jews do not need protection from Whoopi Goldberg. I’m not a fan of The View, nor of its panel of hosts. But let them talk! And if they get something wrong, but not out of malice, then correct them. Don’t cancel them.