OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Whoopi Goldberg, a long-time co-host of ABC’s “The View,” has seen a lot during her years on the show, but she likely got to experience something new this week during a live segment of the show during interaction with an audience member.
The back-and-forth began when a woman in the audience called Goldberg an “old broad” during the opening moments of Wednesday’s show.
According to a report in Entertainment Weekly, the co-hosts all came on stage and took their usual seats, while the audience seemed “very happy.”
Then, a female member of the audience shouted a question at Whoopi, calling her an “old broad” in the process.
That prompted a response from Goldberg, who is 67: “Did you just call me an ‘old broad?'”
Moving on, Goldberg, a veteran performer, made light of the remark, saying, “Yeah, she did. She said, ‘You old broad,’ and I was like, ‘Hey, it’s Wednesday, and I am an old broad and happy about it.’”
One of the studio cameras then panned over to a woman in the audience who was wearing a large fur hat as she nodded in acknowledgment that she was the one who shouted out the comment.
“The alternative is not attractive to any of us,” said Goldberg, following up on the remark. “We all want to be old broads and old dudes, you know?” She then moved into a remark about “the deals Kevin McCarthy made” to become Speaker.
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In a separate report, the New York Post noted that the “fur-capped woman later became a focal point for the cameraman throughout the show.”
It’s probably wise that Goldberg did not escalate the situation with the audience member, considering she was on thin ice with ABC’s management again recently after she doubled down on a previous remark last year claiming that the Holocaust was not about race, earning her a two-week suspension from the show.
At the time, Goldberg said during a discussion on the show that the “Holocaust isn’t about race… it’s about man’s inhumanity to man.”
Co-host Ana Navarro attempted to correct her by noting, “But it’s about white supremacists going after Jews.”
But Goldberg interrupted, claiming that “these are two white groups of people.
“The minute you turn it into a race, it goes down this alley. Let’s talk about it for what it is. It’s how people treat each other. It doesn’t matter if you’re black or white, Jews, it’s each other,” she said.
She continued to argue her point when she made an appearance later in the day on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
“I feel, being black, when we talk about race, it’s a very different thing to me. So I said I thought the Holocaust wasn’t about race. And people got very angry and still are angry. I’m getting a lot of mail from folks and a lot of real anger. But I thought it was a salient discussion because, as a black person, I think of race as being something that I can see,” she argued.
“So I see you and know what race you are. I thought it was more about man’s inhumanity to man. People said, ‘no, no, we are a race.’ I felt differently. I respect everything everyone is saying to me,” she added.
ABC wound up suspending her for the remarks.
However, Goldberg appeared to have repeated her previous comments in an interview with a British outlet that was published in December.
“Remember who they were killing first,” she told The Sunday Times. “They were not killing racial; they were killing physical. They were killing people they considered to be mentally defective. And then they made this decision.
Journalist Janice Turner explained to Goldberg that there were race laws the Nazis created against Jews and said that “Nazis saw Jews as a race.”
“Yes, but that’s the killer, isn’t it? The oppressor is telling you what you are. Why are you believing them? They’re Nazis. Why believe what they’re saying?” she said.
“It doesn’t change the fact that you could not tell a Jew on a street,” she said. “You could find me. You couldn’t find them.”
