Whoopi Goldberg suspended by ABC over Holocaust remarks

[shellee]

Feb 3, 2022 18:47:19 GMT czb said:

we don't??

Pretty much to me.

[constancespry]

Feb 3, 2022 23:21:57 GMT czb said:

^^^ hey, i'm not offended.

i'm just saying that i don't agree with that reasoning, if that is why she said what she said.

I don't agree with it either, but I was wondering why she would say this and that is what occurred to me. Of course, I have no idea if that is indeed why she said what she said. Maybe she'll stop by GR and splain herself.

[no1novice]

In 1993, Goldberg - whose real name is Caryn Johnson - submitted the recipe to Cooking in The Litchfield Hills, a charity cookbook comprised of recipes from the well-heeled residents of the leafy Connecticut suburb.

DailyMail.com exclusively obtained a copy of the long-forgotten cookbook, where Whoopi's recipe mocking Jewish-American women glaringly stands out amongst friendlier submissions like legend Diane Sawyer's 'roasted potato skins with scallion dip', the late Eartha Kitt's 'summer zucchini soup with nasturtium blossoms' and Oscar de la Renta's 'fresh pumpkin and crab soup'.

F ormer US Senator Joe Lieberman's submission was for 'noodle pudding', while fashion designer Diane Von Furstenberg submitted 'sour cream stuffed chicken with new potatoes'.

Whoopi's recipe reads: 'Send chauffeur to your favorite butcher shop for the chicken (save the brown paper bag). Have your cook 1) Melt equal parts oil and butter 3/4 deep in skillet over moderate heat.

'2) Put flour, seasoned with remaining ingredients, into brown paper bag. 3) Rinse chicken parts and place in bag.

'Then you tightly close top of bag (watch your nails) and shake 10 times.

'Hand bag to Cook, go dress for dinner. While you dress, have Cook preheat oven to 350 degrees and brown chicken slowly in skillet. When evenly browned, have Cook place chicken in dish in oven. Have Cook prepare rest of meal while you touch up your makeup.

'In about half an hour, voila! Dinner is served! You must be exhausted.'

[holly]

I can't believe they allowed that to be part of the cookbook. And I can't believe I never heard about this until now!

[LBJ]

You would assume that a black woman would be sensitive to the concerns of the Jewish community in regards to the subject of the Holocaust. Two thirds of European Jewry were wiped out, and for what? The only crime is that they happened to have been born Jewish.

For this they were persequted, harassed, their livelihoods impaired. Ultimately they were arrested and mocked by their Aryan neighbors and stuffed into cattle cars, with an excrement/urine bucket for 80-100 people. Then the concentration camps where many were gassed.

Those that were selected to live were worked to death, froze in their barracks, were eaten alive by lice, starved, humiliated, and beaten.

No people in history were so maligned while being so innocent. I think we non Jews really ought to watch what we say in regards to the suffering of the Jews and maybe, just maybe, show a little sensitivity before we open our mouths.

[MsDark]

Did Whoopi mean that submission to be a joke perhaps? It looks like a recipe for good ole southern fried chicken.

[trixie]

^ Just another example of how tone-deaf she can be. Like defending Cosby, Polanski didn't commit "rape-rape", the Ted Danson blackface incident...

[MsDark]

Ooh yeah. I remember that shit. Whoopi is pretty cringe.

[czb]

i don't know that i expect someone to be more sensitive because they are african american. but there is no excuse for what she said.

[LBJ]

Feb 6, 2022 0:32:37 GMT czb said:

i don't know that i expect someone to be more sensitive because they are african american. but there is no excuse for what she said.

Being African American should mean that you fully understand what it is to be victimized because of your race. 

[beeyotch]

Feb 3, 2022 20:22:35 GMT constancespry said:

I can kind of see where she was coming from with this. As she has probably personally experienced as an African American lady, much bigotry and discrimination is based on obvious physical characteristics like darker skin or specific facial features (for example, Asians who are increasingly victims of verbal and physical assault since the pandemic started) which cannot be hidden, even if the individual blends in otherwise. Whereas many Jewish people in Nazi Germany completely blended in physically, until the nazis came along. But since race is a social construct, and nazis decided to consider Jewish people an "inferior race", their physical appearance did not matter.

This is why I can see where she's coming from too. The difference is that someone like Hedy Lamarr was able to hide that she was Jewish when she felt unsafe. Someone who is visibly brown can't ever hope to do that. "Passing" as white is a divisive issue in the black community (and many other ethnicities) but I can see how personal safety figured largely. That is the race divide that I feel is the difference here.

[czb]

hedy lamarr was able to pass just as some black people are able to pass.

not all jews are identifiable due to their looks, but others are also identifiable due to their last names.

i still don't give WG a pass.

[trixie]

IMO, Whoopi's problem is that she can only see "racism" if it involves white vs. people of color. She doesn't (or didn't) get that the Nazis considered the Jews (and other ethnicities as well) an inferior RACE and wanted them exterminated to create an Aryan race where fair skin, blonde hair and blue eyes were the norm. They particularly focused on the "jewish nose" in their propaganda as being undesirable. Whoopi's comments seemed to imply since all of these people check "caucasian" on the box that it wasn't about race. She is mistaken.

[sputnik]

whoopi needs a history lesson. and this is also a reminder that anyone of any race can be antisemitic, even unintentionally (i really don't think whoopi necessarily had bad intentions with her remarks) and even if they have been the subject of racism and discrimination. it kind of reminds me of the mini-scandal when the founder of man repeller (a fashion blog) got called out for hiring mostly white women and for her treatment of her few employees of colour and creating a hostile workplace. she's a rich jewish woman from the upper east side, it's true she was clueless about her privilege and anyway, she ended up leaving and tehn the blog folded shortly afterward. she was then convinced to be interviewed by a Black woman journalist whose name i also can't remember, for her podcast, and the ideas was to sort of force the blogger to confront her own biases, etc. it was supposed to be in two parts. but there was only ever a part 1 because turns out the journalist said a bunch of shady anti-semitic stuff during the podcast so it turns out she had as many biases as the clueless and privileged blogger chick, except about different groups of people.

as for the recipe, it's from 1993. i don't think anyone was getting shit for making jokes about jewish american princesses so i'd say she was well within the margins of what was considered acceptable humour then, which is a hell of a lot broader than what's acceptable today. it was super common and even abbreviated to JAP and i remember regularly seeing references to that and jokes as recently as maybe 5 years ago. i specifically remember one of my american friends in chile explaining it to several people in our mixed expat group of friends when it came up in a movie or something and a few people were like what's a JAP?

[no1novice]

Yes - to both points.

I can see that Whoopi thought it was “funny” (the receipe) and since it was a neighbourhood book, maybe the neighbours got it?
It just “rape-rape”, Polanski, out of date irrelevant opinions ……