Whoopi Goldberg, an American actress, producer, and writer by the name of Caryn Elaine Johnson, during an interview, made a statement about the Holocaust that has caused a lot of controversies.
The actress has declared that she does not consider Jews to be a race and that the deliberate massacre of Jews by the Nazis during the Second World War had nothing to do with racism. She has indicated that she does not believe that the Holocaust was motivated by racism.
“My best friend said: “It’s not for nothing that there is no column for the Jewish race in the census. So that makes me think that we’re probably not a race.” Initially, it was not about race, Goldberg said, adding that if she were to have been among a gathering of citizens of Nazi Germany or the countries occupied by it, she would have been noticed, but there would be no Jew or Jewess around her at the time.
The actress offered her response to the journalist, who stated that even the Nazis considered Jews to be a race by stating that oppressors’ definitions should not be followed.
Whoopi Goldberg has previously argued that the genocide against Jews was not an expression of racism but rather some “whites versus whites” criminality. This is not the first time she has made a problematic statement about the Holocaust.
Goldberg identified as Jewish and chose her well-known pseudonym because Johnson was “not Jewish enough to be a star.” However, the researchers did not locate any of the actress’s ancestors connected to persons of Semitic descent; all of her DNA lines can be traced back to Africa.
Whoopi Goldberg is one of the few artists in history to have been honoured with all of the following awards: a Grammy, an Oscar, a Golden Globe, an Emmy, and a Tony. She is a prolific producer who has used her global influence to support child rights and other humanitarian concerns such as HIV/AIDS, education, housing, and substance abuse. She is also an advocate for the rights of children.
Whoopi, born and reared in New York City, has performed in San Diego and the Bay Area with the Blake Street Hawkeyes. There, she conceived the characters for “The Spook Show,” which would later become a smash hit on Broadway, a record that would earn a Grammy, and an HBO special to help launch her career.
Whoopi was given the role of Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF in 2003. Recently, she worked with UNICEF as part of a joint effort to push for and collect funding for the global COVID-19 response and efforts to combat pneumonia.
