Should Whoopi Goldberg be censored?

No. I don't think so. I think she's wrong - but so what? Asking her to explain her opinion, and debating the question is potentially a learning experience - lost due to offense culture.

I think American employees should have some protection on how easily their employers can fire them.

Reply to Ree Zen

She's an imbecile, let her speak.

Reply to Ree Zen Saying that the Holocaust was not about racism, but man's inhumanity to man, is a relatively 'weak' statement, but not false. The Nazis were racist, but they used the term in a somewhat different way than it is used contemporarily. Up to the earlier part of the 20th century, some people still used race the way we use 'ethnicity', so the race of Frenchmen, the race of jews, the race of Englishmen, the race of Slavs. The term 'race' also distinguished between Africans, Asians, Europeans, and Indigenous Americans, which is its primary meaning now.

The holocaust is the example par excellence of inhumanity, and goes downhill from there.

What makes Whoopi Goldberg's statement relatively weak, is that 'man's inhumanity to man' is used to describe everything from really, really rude behavior to acts which are an abomination (like the holocaust was).

Reply to ssu Most Americans work under the legal idea of "Employment at will", meaning one can just quit a job if one so wishes without any penalty (supposedly). The other side of that coin is that one can be fired without any justification -- unless one is working under an agreement, like a union contract. (You probably already know this.).

Employment at will is one of the features of the workplace that contributes to worker precarity. If one quits, one is ineligible for unemployment insurance. Same thing if one is fired "for cause" -- like maybe one was engaging in 5-fingered discounts, or just outright theft.

Unemployment benefits vary a lot from state to state, and the harshness with which the program is administered also varies.

Work sucks. That's why they have to pay people to do it.

Quoting Ree Zen

man's inhumanity towards man

What a gender-discriminatory thing to say!

Quoting Bitter Crank

The Nazis were racist, but they used the term in a somewhat different way than it is used contemporarily. Up to the earlier part of the 20th century, some people still used race the way we use 'ethnicity', so the race of Frenchmen, the race of jews, the race of Englishmen, the race of Slavs.

Well put. I think you are right about that. If there was a blonde haired blue eyed ethnic German who was adopted and raised by Jews since infancy, and refused to convert from Judaism, my bet is that the Nazis would not let him slide and would have killed him.

Quoting Bitter Crank

The holocaust is the example par excellence of inhumanity, and goes downhill from there.

Sadly, it's not. In Russia, Communists killed somewhere between 20 and 60 million people, and in China, around 50 million people.

My worry is that censoring speech is where it begins; and genocide is where it ends. Freedom of speech is a bulkwark against the mob, and should not be dismantled - because there are far worse things than being slightly offended by someone's stupid opinions.

Reply to karl stone Yes, I know about the very large numbers of people killed by Stalin, and during the famine of the Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward. There are some differences between the Nazi plan for Jews and Slavs, and the actions directed by Stalin. The same comparing Hitler or Stalin with Mao: the differences make little difference. There are millions of dead, whether caused by efficient planning, paranoia, or colossal, malignant incompetence.

I am not in favor of censoring speech. Whatever the consequence of censorship is, it won't be good.

Reply to Ree Zen Conversely, there were a few Jews able to hide in plain sight because they were tall, blond, blue eyed, and very Aryan in appearance -- more so than many of the top Nazis. Early after the Nazis took over, a diplomat saw Goebbles and asked "Who's the little Jew sitting next to Hitler?"

Quoting Bitter Crank

Yes, I know about the very large numbers of people killed by Stalin, and during the famine of the Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward. There are some differences between the Nazi plan for Jews and Slavs, and the actions directed by Stalin. The same comparing Hitler or Stalin with Mao: the differences make little difference. There are millions of dead, whether caused by efficient planning, paranoia, or colossal, malignant incompetence.

There wasn't an explicit racist motive in Communist genocides, however in the 1920s the policy of korenization (nativization) promoted national minorities into the lower administrative-levels of local government. Stalin reversed Lenin's policies, signing off on orders for exiling multiple distinct ethnic-linguistic groups brandished as "traitors", including the Balkars, Crimean Tatars, Chechens, Ingush, Karachays, Kalmyks, Koreans, and Meskhetian Turks, who were collectively deported to Siberia or Central Asia.

No, she should not have been censored. Censorship is cruel and leaves us ignorant. Better to let truth and falsity battle it out in the open field.

I suspect that folks sometimes confuse being censored with being censured. If there is no censorship, you can say stupid and hurtful things, and when you do, or when you don't, you can be called stupid and hurtful. When you call someone out for being stupid and hurtful, and say you don't want to support them or work with them, you are censuring them not censoring them.

Quoting Bitter Crank

The other side of that coin is that one can be fired without any justification -- unless one is working under an agreement, like a union contract. (You probably already know this.).

And you probably know that because the role of the unions is so small is the reason just why so often firing can happen without any justification or for the most unimportant issues.

It's not a political view to join an union, it's just common sense. Or should be.

Quoting ssu

I think American employees should have some protection on how easily their employers can fire them.

Ah, the heavenly realms of capitalism!

Quoting Ree Zen

Recently Whoopi said the Holocaust wasn't about race, it was about man's inhumanity towards man.

Hm. A black American celebrity making remarks about race. Tricky. If a white American celebrity were to say the same things, it might have come across very differently.


Moreover, saying that the holocaust wasn't about race, but about man's inhumanity to man is 1. downplaying the holocaust into, basically, yet another horrible thing people do to eachother, and as such it 2. hits home with everyone.

As long as the holocaust is neatly tucked into the category of "racism", it's yet another "Oh, this doesn't concern me, because I'm not a racist". But framing it in more general terms, like "inhumanity" it suddenly becomes something that everyone 1. knows, 2. can do, or 3. can be subject to. And that's why framing it like this is inexcusably rude.

Quoting Bitter Crank

Saying that the Holocaust was not about racism, but man's inhumanity to man, is a relatively 'weak' statement, but not false. The Nazis were racist, but they used the term in a somewhat different way than it is used contemporarily. Up to the earlier part of the 20th century, some people still used race the way we use 'ethnicity', so the race of Frenchmen, the race of jews, the race of Englishmen, the race of Slavs. The term 'race' also distinguished between Africans, Asians, Europeans, and Indigenous Americans, which is its primary meaning now.

The holocaust is the example par excellence of inhumanity, and goes downhill from there.

What makes Whoopi Goldberg's statement relatively weak, is that 'man's inhumanity to man' is used to describe everything from really, really rude behavior to acts which are an abomination (like the holocaust was).

Well said.

I thought that she would bring up the question of whether being a Jew is religious or a race. This could have then opened up a conversation on the topic. In Whoopie's apology she effectively said that Jews are a race because the Nazis said so. The Nazis said that Aryan is a race, too. I didn't know that we were suppose to take something as true because the Nazis said so.

So Whoopie was suspended for questioning something the Nazis said. I didn't know that the producers on the View were Nazi sympathizers.

I have no love for Whoopie because she often has no clue what she's saying or how to defend it properly. I do have a love for her right to talk herself into a hole, though.

Quoting Harry Hindu

I do have a love for her right to talk herself into a hole, though.

:lol:

Information on ethnically Asian Jews are sketchy but there are black Jews and racial discrimination against them have been reported (vide the story of Nadine-Batchelor Hunt. So, are Jews a race or not?

Racism is like theism in this respect, that the reality of the 'ism is independent of its truth. What counts as a race, and what counts as a god are not questions that can be answered in any neutral or objective way.

Still, if one were to speak of visible or measurable difference and, say, 'colour prejudice' and perhaps 'ethnic prejudice', one might be able to consider differences between the African, Asian, Arabic, Irish, and Jewish experiences of discrimination. But I don't think we need a league table of collective suffering, do we?

Heidegger thought the Holocaust was like modern industrialized agriculture, and people adore him. Free Whoopi!

Just can't miss a chance to excoriate Heildegger, you know.

Quoting Bitter Crank

Saying that the Holocaust was not about racism, but man's inhumanity to man, is a relatively 'weak' statement, but not false.

A better worded statement from her would have been to say the Holocaust was not only about race, but it was also about man's inhumanity to man and a warning to all who might one day find themselves in the crosshairs.

But that isn't what she said, and so the fallout. It was about race and it is also about many other things.

My own opinion is that I will continue my de facto boycott of The View that has been going strong ever since the show first aired.

Reply to Ree Zen
Quoting Ree Zen

I think the Holocaust had elements of both racism and inhumanity

As I see it, racism and inhumanity go hand in hand. Normally, only the first implies the second, not vice versa. However, I believe that the meaning of "racism" may be extended to include any antagonism in which one person considers the other one inferior, for a lot of reasons besides race, and treats him/her in an inhuman way. Which fits your belief that "racism is born out of a type of inhumanity towards another".

Quoting Hanover

My own opinion is that I will continue my de facto boycott of The View that has been going strong ever since the show first aired.

"And today we have as our guest an conservative internet commentator from the well revered Philosophy Forum, @Hanover.

She was not wrong.
I just think her wording was a bit unfortunate, maybe thinking race has to do with the color of our skin.

So when they went door to door hunting down Jews it wasn't about race? Well, I never knew that. I don't think I know it even now. I cannot see how it can be true.

Quoting Ciceronianus

Heildegger

:sparkle:

Reply to Cuthbert

Gosh. That's not how his name is spelled, is it?

Quoting Ciceronianus

Gosh. That's not how his name is spelled, is it?

From now on I will spell it no other way.