Whoopi Goldberg Co-Host Responds to People Who Think Suspension Not Enough

Whoopi Goldberg Co-Host Responds to People Who Think Suspension Not Enough
(L-R) In this handout photo provided by Disney Resorts, hosts Sunny Hostin, Joy Behar, Whoopi Goldberg, guest John Stamos, Sara Haines and Jedediah Bila pose on ABC's "The View" broadcasting from Disneys Animal Kingdom in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., on March 6, 2017. (Todd Anderson/Disney Resorts via Getty Images)
Lorenz Duchamps
2/7/2022
Updated:
2/7/2022

Sara Haines, a co-host of Whoopi Goldberg from “The View,” showed support for the long-time talk show host after several fans said they think the length of her suspension is not enough in comparison to what she did.

Goldberg has been widely criticized after declaring that the Holocaust was “not about race”—which was followed by a statement from the network on Feb. 1 announcing a two-week suspension for the host.
Haines posted a selfie on Instagram of the duo laughing, writing in the caption of the post that seeing this picture “warmed [her] heart.”

“This just popped up and warmed my heart,” Haines said. “That’s my Whoops!!!!”

The 44-year-old’s post gained the attention of several of her followers, prompting a debate over the length of Goldberg’s suspension.

Sara Haines attends the world premiere of 'Nobody's Fool' at AMC Lincoln Square Theater in N.Y.C., on Oct. 28, 2018. (Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures)
Sara Haines attends the world premiere of 'Nobody's Fool' at AMC Lincoln Square Theater in N.Y.C., on Oct. 28, 2018. (Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures)

Responding to the criticism, Haines added a comment to her own post, writing: “I’d like to invite people trolling the post to go play somewhere else.”

“To learn from a moment is all we can ask of anyone. And prioritizing punitive measures at the expense of the message/issue (and teaching moment) are misguided.”

Some fans in disapproval of Goldberg’s “Holocaust remarks” said the long-time host should get fired, while another Instagram user called for the show to get canceled.

“I cannot believe you’re making excuses for Whoopie Goldberg anybody else would have been fired!!!!” one person commented on Haines’s post. Another person wrote that the whole show should be canceled, claiming it includes “nothing but hate.”

Goldberg released a statement one day after her remarks—apologizing for the “hurt” she had caused after a social media outcry over her view on the genocide of 6 million Jews.
Whoopi Goldberg attends the world premiere of "Nobody's Fool" in New York on Oct. 28, 2018. (Charles Sykes/Invision/AP Photo)
Whoopi Goldberg attends the world premiere of "Nobody's Fool" in New York on Oct. 28, 2018. (Charles Sykes/Invision/AP Photo)

“On today’s show, I said the Holocaust ‘is not about race, but about man’s inhumanity to man.’ I should have said it is about both,” she wrote. “As Jonathan Greenblatt from the Anti-Defamation League shared, ‘The Holocaust was about the Nazi’s [sic] systematic annihilation of the Jewish people—who they deemed to be an inferior race.’ I stand corrected.”

Goldberg made her original comments during a discussion on Monday’s show about a Tennessee school board’s banning of “Maus,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Nazi death camps during World War II.

“I misspoke,” the host said at the opening of Tuesday’s show, a day later.

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Nazi regime did define Jews as a “race.” Embracing a social Darwinist “survival of the fittest” view of human society, the Nazis attributed a wide variety of negative stereotypes about Jews to an unchanging, biologically determined heritage that supposedly drove the “Jewish race” to struggle to survive by expansion at the expense of other races.