Whoopi Goldberg banned for saying holocaust was not about race | Hacker News Reader

Whoopi Goldberg banned for saying holocaust was not about race

nytimes.com

9 pointsdusted29 comments

“Race” is not synonymous with color. It can mean roughly-something related to shared background, but it’s not very precise.

Sounds like she just got caught up in differing definitions for the word, and perhaps total (and if she considers herself Jewish in any way, pretty awful) ignorance of the use of the pre-existing phrase “Jewish race”. A few generations ago, in the USA, Jews were not considered “white”, and neither were Italians or Irish.

EDIT: I seem to have crossed a line I can’t see. Anyone hazard a guess why this was downvoted?

Don’t bring attention to any historic caucasian struggles because bringing attention to the plight of any race other than a race currently labeled ‘minority’ is an affront to the party.

Jeez. My family fled religious persecution to find a new home here, and then 150 years later took up arms to protest economic injustice, resulting in the mess we call the USA now, and vast waves of additional immigrants peeing on the next wave of immigrants (all of whom were concurrently shitting on the pre-existing natives, who themselves likely replaced earlier humans that came over the land route from Asia). I’ve been missing the memo that being confused and overlooking details is cause to be cancelled.

I don't know why people would downvote you, but my guess is that a lot of people especially in America who identify with being progressive don't like the idea that race might include Jewish people, not just black and white people. However, historically (just 50 or so years ago) "Jewish" was effectively considered a race even though it's more of a religious heritage and there are black Jewish people immigrating to Israel from Africa.

I merely recommend that everybody who believes race is about black and white go read up on the entire world history and how people have treated race over time.

Probably going to be downvoted to hell but anyway.

Why are we always saying that hating jews is about race and not religion?

There is black African Jews, white north African Jews, eastern European Jews, Hispanic Jews, middle eastern Jews.

It's something that I'll really never wrap my head around.

I'm genetically/ethnically ""identical"" to a whole bunch of Jews, but there isn't a single Jewish person in my family.

Is hating Mormons racist against white people?

Is hating Muslims racist against Arabs?

Why is there an exception for Jews?

What caused me some distress in this is news item is that as far as I can understand, her statement was correct, it is my understanding that Jews are a religious group, not a race.

No matter how one defines race, I do not know of any widespread religion or belief system that is exclusive to a single race?

It may be be my ignorance about holocaust, but I understand that it was a genocide of Jews, not a specific race, is this wrong information?

For the Jewish part I'm convinced it's correct.

However there is the mostly forgotten Romani genocide part that was definitely about race.

Some starting points:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnoreligious_group

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_is_a_Jew%3F

Note how ethnic factors are mentioned a lot. "Jewishness" gets mostly inherited, and is thus tightly intertwined with ethnicity and "race" (scare quotes because its IMHO not an all-that-useful or well-defined term).

> No matter how one defines race

The Nazis were very explicit about exterminating the "Jewish Race": people with ancestors that were Jewish. If people get prosecuted because some of their ancestors were Jewish, without consideration for their own religious practice, you can't pretend it was "just" religious persecution. (also to be noted that this is indeed different than many other instances of anti-jewish policies in history which were motivated by religion not race and did not include people who were not practicing Jews)

So the basis for determining whether a group is a race is the thoughts and actions of some psychotic meth-addicted tyrants?

It's a belief system, a way of thinking, just because some lunatic decide to persecute anyone blood related to someone with a certain belief system or who thinks a certain way doesn't make it a race.

If someone want to exterminate what he decides to call the Scientologist race and anyone related to them, does that mean it suddenly becomes a race?

And Jews believe it only gets inherited through the mother, that's not how race works. A biracial man with a black father and a white mother is just as white or just as black than a biracial man with a white father.

Thank you, that was insightful.

So it's kind of granted that in order for someone to define Jews as a race, one has to agree with the nazi definition of Jew.

This makes the ban even more perplexing, so on one hand ABC chose the nazi definition and on the other they (I assume) distance themselves from everything else the nazis said or belived..

> So it's kind of granted that in order for someone to define Jews as a race, one has to agree with the nazi definition of Jew.

I'm genuinely curious how you think that the first part of my comment and the links there don't support the concept?

The text I find with the word "race" is when explaining that the nazis are defining Jews as a race.

I cant seem but to find the idea of defining a race as "anyone belonging to this religion" so incomprehensible that I probably can't read the text the way it's supposed to be read.

Does that mean that simply being born to a Jewish father makes you a part of the Jewish race?

Does it then mean that by rejecting your religion, your race changes?

I guess I really have no idea what race means.

Jewishness encompasses both religion and ethnicity [1]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews

I'm aware of what's widely accepted as the truth regarding this issue.

What I don't understand is on which logical basis it's widely accepted.

How can a black Ethiopian and a white Polish be considered part of the same race?

It does not compute.

They are not considered to be the same race and yet both can be Jews.

I was just thinking about the Sith in Star Wars, but maybe that comparison hurts feelings again....

> They are not considered to be the same race and yet both can be Jews.

then it's not a race, it's a really obvious paradox

It isn't a paradox, it can be both a religion and a race. For those that consider themselves Jews the religious component is obviously more important. I am ethnically a Jew and yet I am a Christian (not religious, more a tradition and paper thing). I don't consider myself a Jew but some would. For racists that prosecuted Jews the ethnic component was far more important.

Judaism also has an ethnic component as those that are descendants of Abraham are considered Jews. And yet, those that adopted Judaism are too.

Despite using the same terms, they're distinct. You can be ethnically Jewish but not religiously Jewish and vice versa.

It would probably be more clear if there were separate terms for "I practice Judaism" and "I am descended from the Jewish ethnic group".

The whole concept of “race” when it comes to racism is a human construct.

There are many different black ethnicities and many different white ethnicities (and many in the shades between), but to racists there’s just black and white, and the fact that they are conflating many different people into one category doesn’t make them any less racist.

Antisemitism is not about religion because antisemites also hate Jews who are not religious, or who changed their religion.

They especially hate secular Jews, far more than religious ones, even if the most crazies start with attacking synagogues. Finding the others isn't as easy I suppose.

Religion didn't save you from prosecution in Europe and for some your ethnicity is the determining factor. There is a religious component as well, but it is unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

Its not a factual disagreement. Its power play. Whoopi said something that goes against the narrative of more influential people.

Care to elaborate?

It's hard to explain Race In America, but basically, over the past few decades, progressive media has sort of simplified its message and considered only really "Black people racism" (IE, the systemic and daily experiences of black people in America being treated as second class citizens). This sort of led to a self-reinforcing cycle. Over time, it grew to include many marginalized classes, but in the US, many previously second-class/margianlized classes (Eastern European Jews, Asians from many different countries, non-Jewish eastern european people, etc) are economically successful and integrate with the mainstream, so they tend to be excluded from discussions of racism.

At any time in the US there are "third rails" that, if you state an opinion, will immediately lead to intense controversey and this is one of them.

The Nazi extermination camps were not only killing Jews, but also homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses and Communists...

Of course, the word of "holocaust" or "Shoah" is a Jewish religious word (meaning "burnt offering" and is usually used in the context of persecution and mass killing of the Jews. These kinds of mass killings took place all over eastern Europa even before 1940... [1]

[1] https://www.annefrank.org/nl/anne-frank/verdieping/wat-is-de...

Romani/Romas were one of the more effectively genocided against as well, a prime "enemy of the race-based state".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_genocide

From an interesting post by Rabbi Shaul Valadez (actually responding to a question on patrilinearity in Judaism):

Judaism is not race based. Anyone can become a Jew if they choose to. Even in Abraham’s time The first and greatest student of Abraham was Eliezer of Damascus. He was a Cannanite and he was actually a Phonecian from Africa by ancestry. He is said to be so righteous that he, like Elijah The Prophet never died.

https://www.quora.com/Would-patrilineal-Jews-such-as-myself-...

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