The View co-host Whoopi Goldberg returned to the show after a two-week suspension over comments she made about the holocaust, and promised business as usual.
In a conversation regarding the banning of Maus in a Tennesee school district, Goldberg remarked that the Holocaust “wasn’t about race.” Her comments drew anger from all sides of the aisle and set off a national conversation about Jewish people’s treatment during the period when Nazis were in power, ultimately leading to her suspension.
“Yes, I am back,” she said at the top of the show, according to Variety.
“I’ve got to tell you, there’s something kind of marvelous about being on a show like this because we are The View and this is what we do. And sometimes we don’t do it as delicately as we could… But it’s five minutes to get in important information about topics. And that’s what we try to do every day. And I want to thank everybody who reached out while I was away.”
Goldberg also shared that while she was suspended she heard from a lot of people and realized it was important to have meaningful dialogue about difficult topics.
“And I’m telling you, people reached out from places that made me go, ‘Wait, wait, what? Really? OK!’ And it was amazing and I listened to everything everybody had to say and I was very grateful, and I hope it keeps all the important conversations happening because we’re going to keep having tough conversations. And in part, because this is what we have been hired to do. And it’s not always pretty, as I said, and it’s not always as other people would like to hear, but it is an honor to sit at this table and be able to have these conversations because they’re important. They’re important to us as a nation, and to us more so as a human entity. So, happy Valentine’s Day, y’all! And we’re going to get started, because that’s what we do.”
After Goldberg received heavy backlash following her controversial comments, she apologized for the comments online and then the next day on the show.
“So yesterday on our show, I misspoke. I said that the Holocaust wasn’t about race and it was instead about man’s inhumanity to man. But it is indeed about race, because Hitler and the Nazis considered the Jews to be an inferior race. Now, words matter and mine are no exception. I regret my comments as I said and I stand corrected. I also stand with the Jewish people, as they know, and as you all know because I’ve always done that.”
The View airs weekdays on ABC Network.
