The Holocaust was about race AND...
What we're getting wrong about what Whoopi got wrong
On Monday, Whoopi Goldberg prompted a social media ruckus by claiming that the Holocaust was not about race. This argument has no historical basis. It also seems rooted in a misguided attempt to eschew talking about race in favor of a universalist discussion of “man’s inhumanity to man.” Despite Whoopi’s apology, she’s been suspended from The View for two weeks.
One defense of Goldberg which I appreciated came from Yair Rosenberg who writes for The Atlantic:
Goldberg is not an anti-Semite, but she was confused—and understandably so. In my experience, mistakes like hers often happen because well-meaning people have trouble fitting Jews into their usual boxes. They don’t know how to define Jews, and so they resort to their own frames of reference, like “race” or “religion,” and project them onto the Jewish experience. But Jewish identity doesn’t conform to Western categories, despite centuries of attempts by society to shoehorn it in.
While I generally agree with Rosenberg’s take, I do think he misses an opportunity to draw an important connection between the racialization of Jews in the United States and how they were racialized by Nazi Germany.
To me, it is vital to point out that the Nazis built their legal framework for anti-Semitic laws by drawing on Jim Crow laws.
This to me is the stronger counterpoint to Goldberg’s claim that the Holocaust was not about race. Many are arguing that the Nazis saw Jews in Europe as a distinct race and stopping there. In doing so, we miss a chance to understand the impact of race and racism as it was constructed in the United States and its global impact. The racial distinction of Jews in Europe goes back centuries before Jim Crow. However, Jim Crow laws provided the Nazis the legal and pseudo-scientific framework from which they carried out the extermination of Jews and other racialized groups such as Roma.
There is also a big difference between the way Jews of European descent are currently racialized in the United States and the way they were racialized in eastern Europe leading up to the Holocaust. First and foremost, it’s important to be precise in our language. Not all Jews are Jews of European descent. When talking about Jews of European descent in the United States, it is fair to say that they are now white. At the time of the Holocaust, Jews of the European descent in the United States faced oppression more similar to their counterparts in Europe. But while anti-Semitism persists in the United States, Europe, and globally, racialized oppression for Jews who are now white no longer exists. This feels necessary to point out, because white Jews and the larger American public sometimes point to the historic racial oppression of Jews as evidence that Jews of European descent are not presently white.
The strong backlash to Goldberg’s comments brings up a few other thoughts for me that I’ll keep brief. These include, but are not limited to:
Goldberg’s suspension demonstrates the uncomfortable reality that Jews in the United States do have outsize political power for a group of their size. Generally the consequences for anti-Semitic (I wouldn’t classify Goldberg’s words as such) comments are more consistent and harsher than for anti-Black rhetoric.
Anti-Semitism actually sets Jews up to play this role (a hyper-visible, economically and politically powerful group) in order to distract from the larger power structure (power that is actually concentrated in the hands of wealthy, white Christian men).
This country is very challenged by conversations about race, and Goldberg makes a very easy target here. In reality, she’s probably not saying anything too far out of the mainstream American understanding of race. I guarantee Joe Rogan and other high profile white men have made dozens of more idiotic statements about race or Jews. But for some reason the flawed take we’re all paying attention to this week came from a Black woman. Strange.
Anti-Semitism and the racial identity of Jews of European descent are complex topics. I’m sure I’ve over-simplified and missed some points here. Feel free to help me out in the comments.
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