Whoopi Issues On-Air Apology for Holocaust Remarks: 'It is Indeed About Race'

Whoopi Goldberg offered an on-air apology this morning after she was widely criticized for saying "the Holocaust isn't about race" on Monday's show.

"Yesterday on our show, I misspoke, and I tweeted about it last night, but I kind of want you to hear it from me, directly," Whoopi said at the top of Tuesday's broadcast. "I said something that I feel a responsibility for not leaving unexamined because my words upset so many people, which was never my intention. And I understand why now, and for that I am deeply, deeply grateful because the information I got was really helpful and helped me understand some different things."

"While discussing how a Tennessee school board unanimously voted to remove a graphic novel about the Holocaust, I said that 'the Holocaust wasn't about race' and it was instead about 'man's inhumanity to man,'" she continued. "But it is indeed about race, because Hitler and the Nazis considered Jews to be an inferior race."

Whoopi went on to say that "words matter, and mine are no exception" before issuing an apology. "I regret my comments, as I said, and I stand corrected," she said. "I also stand with the Jewish people, as they know and y'all know, because I've always done that."

"I stand corrected. I also stand with the Jewish people, as they know and y'all know, because I've always done that."@WhoopiGoldberg apologized on #TheView for saying "the Holocaust isn’t about race," adding that she "misspoke" and "words matter, and mine are no exception." pic.twitter.com/ScBxJSkoe0

— Mediaite (@Mediaite) February 1, 2022

As part of Whoopi's mea culpa, The View invited Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, to discuss anti-semitism and the Nazis' racist ideology. Greenblatt was one of many prominent figures who called out Whoopi's remarks on Monday, tweeting, "The Holocaust was about the Nazi's systematic annihilation of the Jewish people – who they deemed to be an inferior race. They dehumanized them and used this racist propaganda to justify slaughtering 6 million Jews. Holocaust distortion is dangerous."

Greenblatt said as much on The View Tuesday morning. "Hitler's ideology, the Third Reich, was predicated on the idea that the Aryans, the Germans, were a 'master race' and the Jews were a sub-human race. It was a racialized anti-semitism," he said. "Now, that might not fit exactly or feel different than the way we think about race in 21st century America, where primarily it's about people of color, but throughout the Jewish people's history, they have been marginalized, they have been persecuted, they have been slaughtered, in large part because many people felt they were not just a different religion, but indeed a different race."

Claire Spellberg Lustig is the Senior Editor at Primetimer and a scholar of The View. Follow her on Twitter at @c_spellberg.