it was against slavic folk too. i mentioned the poles and the russians were viewed as inferior. they had black germans there. they were viewed as inferior. but jews were targeted by the gangster fascists in germany. in the united states you have an attempt of many jews to assimilate and too often become identified with the gentiles, with the goyim, as it were. and yet the deep anti-jmt ewish sensibilities in america make it very difficult for there to ever be full-fledged jewish assimilation within the white mainstream. but when it comes to caste-like treatment of black people the black predicament is very different from the white jewish predicament in america. so that s part of what she s trying to get at but she was clumsy about it. race is a social construct. do you guys agree with that or disagree
somebody was a slave or somebody s life may have been violated in the most extreme way. there s different context in the world in which different thinkings about race is more salient. life against jews in german. do you want to continue with that, professor west? as our definition of racism changed? one it is institutionalized and legalized. it takes on a life of its own, you see. the white supremacy of the construct and acribed in the laws and acribed in the black beauty and black intelligence and indigenous people it gets institutionalized. then that lie become as lie. because you got institutions
guessed dressed and i had it on in the background. and i kind of understood what she was saying. it was a little clumsy. she was talking about race as something you can see. and here in america especially as people of color we get that. but that is not always the case. not all jewish people present as white. like jonathan greenblatt said that on this very program last night. that s right. but the nazis said that jewish people were a race, the reason for the stars, they wanted to be able to identify them. they saw them as an inferior race. that s the lesson in it here. talk to me about that. you can understand why people can see where she s coming from with that part of it. but it was clumsy. no, that s true. we know the klan was founded against catholics, jews and then especially blacks. but it was actually all-inclusive in that sense. and it s also true that even during the holocaust, you know,
that it was about race. what did you think of this? well, in these neofascist times we ve got to stress integrity, honesty, and courage. when people are wrong, they re wrong. our dear sister whoopi was wrong. brother yascha is right. there s no doubt that when you talk about not just the holocaust, you re talking about 2,000 years of jewish brothers and sisters being a hated people. and this is just the modern this is just the modern culmination of it with the shoah, with the holocaust. but whoopi s point about man s inhumanity to man is still a crucial one because the holocaust was distinctive. that 6 million jewish brothers and sisters you also had poles. you also had soviet folks. you also had gays. german socialists and communists. but it was primarily targeting jews. but if we can t come out of this teachablmoment with a deeper commitment to truth and
you. do you think abc s suspension of whoopi goes too far after her on-air apology? yes, i think it does. i just don t see what it s supposed to accomplish. her comments about the holocaust certainly were offensive. it is historically inaccurate to suggest that the murder of 6 million people had nothing to do with race. unfortunately, the way that the nazis thought about race very much characterized jews as an inferior race, and this is a large part of what drove what they called the final solution, what drove the murder of 6 million jews. but whoopi goldberg made a mistake. we solved the problem in the best way we can, with lots of counter speech, with lots of people pointing out the mistake she made. she realized that she d made a mistake. as you say, she apologized live on air. and that to me was a great teaching moment. viewers of the view may have learned something from it, may have come away with a better understanding of this tragic part of human history. and i don t see wha