Whoopi Goldberg, Anti-Semitism And The Woke Left Gone Mad

When a staunch liberal tries to downplay the murderous racism of the Holocaust, you know something is terribly, terribly wrong.

by Ben Cohen

This week, Whoopi Goldberg told her co-hosts on “The View” multiple times that Holocaust was “not about race”, and was instead about “man’s inhumanity to man”.

“These are two white groups of people,” she continued. “This is white people doing it to white people, so y’all going to fight amongst yourselves.”

As a person of Jewish extraction I beg to differ with Goldberg’s assertion. As would the 6 million Jews annihilated by the Nazis during World War II no doubt. Contrary to Goldberg’s assertion, the Holocaust was specifically about race and Hitler’s attempt to eradicate what he viewed as a subhuman racial group that were akin to vermin to give more space (or “Lebensraum”) for the master Aryan race.

While Goldberg apologized for her comments that earned her a two week suspension from “The View”, her views on what constitutes race are indicative of a growing problem on the Left.

The Left’s new ideology

In recent years, anti racist, feminist and LGBT movements have been coopted by identity politics extremists who have declared an Orwellian war on reality. This “Woke” ideology has now infected Left wing circles to the extent that it it now gravely threatens the Great Society liberalism of the 1960’s.

Two decades ago it would be unthinkable for anyone to say that the Holocaust was “not about race”, but Goldberg was simply saying what many in identity politics circles now believe; that Jews are interchangeable with white people, beneficiaries of “white privilege”, and thus firmly on one side of the oppressors vs victims narrative.

This binary retelling of history is central to the Woke Left’s agenda. According to their strictures, history can only be viewed through the prism of gender, race, and identity. Once these classifications have been defined, humans can then be divided into overlapping sets and subsets of race, gender and identity. I am for example, a white, straight, cisgender male who should identify as “he/him”. My wife is a “Latinx”, cisgender female who should identify as “she/her”, etc, etc.

According to the identity politics extremists, these stultifying categories denote our respective positions in a strict hierarchy of oppression. As a white, straight, cis-male, I have no standing as an oppressed minority. My Jewish origin is thus irrelevant, because according to the hard Left I am still “White”, and thus part of the oppressor class. This despite all the horrors of Jewish history in Europe and ongoing acts of extreme violence towards Jews.

Origins in truth

There are kernels of truth contained in the categorizations ordained by the Woke Left; white men have, at least in modern history, wielded disproportionate power in society over minorities and women. European nations have profited from their brutal colonial exploits around the world. Racialism has been used to oppress and marginalize people of color for hundreds of years. Jews for the most part appear white and thus benefit (at least in recent times) from some forms of “white privilege”. I can walk down the street for example, and not worry about getting harassed by the police — a privilege I absolutely do not take for granted.

Talking about all of this is perfectly reasonable, as most liberals try to do in the hopes of building a better world.

The problem with the Woke Left’s unquestionable orthodoxy, nuance and the complexity of human experience gets thrown out of the window. In Goldberg’s case, she simply discarded the complex history and identity of Jewish people and decided it was OK to lump them in with “white people” just having an argument with other “white people”. Yes, Jews mostly look “white”, but they are also a distinct ethnic group. The Nazis clearly viewed them as such and decided the human species would be better off without them.

“White Privilege”? Yes…and no…

If you had tried to explain to my grandparents for that they had benefited from “white privilege”, they would not have understood what you were talking about. Both grew up in extremely poor parts of London in the 1920’s and 30’s and suffered various forms of anti-semitism throughout their lives. My grandfather quite literally took to the streets to stop fascists taking over his neighborhood. They both watched in horror as the Nazis stormed through Europe and wiped out millions of Jews — an event so horrific I could never get either of them to talk about it. I remember trying to discuss the Holocaust with my Grandmother once, but a visible pain cast over her face so quickly that I changed the subject immediately. I never brought it up again.

Growing up with this family history I always understood that I was always potentially a target, a minority in a country with a long and storied history of violent antisemitism. My uncle changed his last name to avoid discrimination, only had Asian, Black and Jewish friends, and often told me never to trust English people. My Grandfather always told me to learn how to fight “because when you’re Jewish, you get a lot of stick”. I did, and hung out mostly with the other minority kids who saw themselves as outsiders in British society.

To find out from fellow liberals in recent times that I am not a minority and also an “oppressor” because of my skin color has been confusing to say the least.

Hated by the Left and the Right

“A sacred circle is drawn around those whom the progressive modern left are prepared to go into battle for, and it seems as if the Jews aren’t in it,” writes British author David Baddiel in his book “Jews Don’t Count”.

“Why?” he asks. “Well, there are lots of answers. But the basic one, underpinning all others, is that Jews are the only objects of racism who are imagined — by the racists — as both low and high status. Jews are stereotyped, by the racists, in all the same ways that other minorities are — as lying, thieving, dirty, vile, stinking — but also as moneyed, privileged, powerful and secretly in control of the world. Jews are somehow both sub-human and humanity’s secret masters.”

This is what racism against Jews looks like. This is my experience of having Jewish heritage — to be thought of by white Europeans as a money grabbing shyster sucking resources away from society, and to be thought of by other minorities and the far Left as being a different kind of minority, a privileged one somehow not susceptible to “real” racism. I was once asked by a Muslim friend at university why Jews had money related last names (Goldberg, Goldsmith, Silverstein etc). I’ve had black friends casually say “don’t be such a Jew” when someone isn’t being generous.

I would say I have been on the receiving end of anti-semitism from white and minority groups in almost exactly equal proportions, and it isn’t getting better. With the rise of “Wokeism” and other far Left movements (like Jeremy Corbyn’s brand of socialism in the UK), I’d even venture to say it is getting worse.

When you try to explain this to people — and sometimes even my own non-Jewish family members — they rarely believe it is true.

Wokeism isn’t liberal

The Anti Defamation League — itself a Jewish organization — recently published their new definition of the word “racism”. Here is the old one:

And here’s the new one:

According to the new definition of racism, only white people can be racist.

Think about that for a moment. Every non-white empire/kingdom or nation in human history can be absolved of killing, raping, and enslaving other peoples because it couldn’t have been racism. Japan may have invaded China due to the perceived inferiority of the Chinese people, but this can now be categorized as a mere a disagreement between two nations. African Americans assaulting Asian people for being Asian isn’t racist, but another form of White Supremacy:

Anti-Asian racism has the same source as anti-Black racism: white supremacy. So when a Black person attacks an Asian person, the encounter is fueled perhaps by racism, but very specifically by white supremacy. White supremacy does not require a white person to perpetuate it.

Yes, really.

The Holocaust, according to the ADL’s own definition of racism, cannot be about race because Jews are white.

To deny that Black, Brown, Asian and Indigenous people cannot be racist reduces other races and ethnicities to childish stereotypes — noble innocents incapable of malice or bad actions because of their skin color. In other words, it is racist.

The reaction is already here

President Obama warned the left about the excesses of identity politics as his presidency came to an end, perhaps sensing it would create an uncontrollable reaction from the Right. The Left did not listen, and a neo-fascist movement metastasized has destroyed what was left of traditional conservatism in America.

America’s political system has been fracturing for many years now, largely because of extreme Right wing movements trying to destabilize what was built during and after the Civil Rights era. Now, an extremist movement on the Left is adding fuel to that fire, undoing what it purports to uphold and infecting a political party that is hanging by a thread.

If more liberals do not stand up to this madness, Trump and the fascist Right in America will win again. Because when a staunch liberal tries to downplay the murderous racism of the Holocaust, you know something is terribly, terribly wrong.

Read an excerpt from the latest for Banter Members. Try it free for 90 days:

America Enters The Make-Believe Phase Of The Pandemic

America seems to be reacting to COVID now with millions of shrug-shoulder emojis.

Image: Ryan Stanton | The Ann Arbor News

by Bob Cesca

WASHINGTON, DC – The longer this goddamn pandemic continues, the more I feel like I’m living in an alternate timeline where millions of seemingly normal grownups have decided to ignore a serious public health threat merely because they’re sick of the threat. Nothing makes sense any more as we sashay into universal delusion, lying to ourselves about the true nature of COVID-19.

Let’s be clear about something before we continue: this isn’t about those of us who are vaccinated, boosted, and have decided to return to the new normal: masked in public spaces indoors and generally keeping an eye on the existence of this menace. This is absolutely reasonable – personally, I’ve made steps in that direction, too, returning to the gym, visiting family when I can, and so forth. Were I to guess, I’d say I’m back to around 80 percent of my previous life.

This is about those among us who want our political leaders to declare a badly premature end to the pandemic and therefore an end to all safety protocols. These are the badly deluded, entitled, selfish pricks I’m talking about here. If that happens, not only will it be one of the most blinding examples of deliberate gaslighting, but America will be forever snared in an endless cycle of deadly variant spike after deadly variant spike. I guess these people have decided that intermittent episodes of mass death should be the status quo -- something we just live with because fuck it. Staggering….

This is an excerpt from today’s Members Only piece. You can continue reading for free by getting a three month free trial here.