Now I am confused. I see that Whoopi Goldberg got chastised and temporarily banned from “The View” for saying that the holocaust wasn’t about race. The reactions to that statement really surprised me because I agreed with her. As far as I know, the topic with regard to the Jews and the holocaust is ethnicity, not race. Yes, the Nazi’s talked about it in terms of “race” – but I always just assumed that they were wrong. I am not aware of any visible (or perhaps invisible but detectable) genetic feature that causes someone to be Jewish. I think race implies such as a feature. Just because the Nazi’s talked about it as if they were trying to eliminate a race doesn’t necessarily make it so. However, I suppose if the Germans thought they were dealing with a race, and acted upon that belief – perhaps the actions were racist even though the reality was different.

This is close to the point where I get really confused by the entire topic of “race” and “racism” – I don’t quite know what it even means. We are all people, and all people carry features that come with along with their genes, coming from their families and ancestors. As far as I can determine, every single person could be considered a separate “race.” That might be a little extreme, but for certain every “family” (consisting of parents and children) could have that designation. Beyond that everyone is a mix. It appears to me that the Jewish historical identification includes quite a diverse mix of races.

Anyway, it seems to me to be rather extreme to call out Whoopi for her thinking on the topic. It doesn’t equate to “ignorance” or lack of education, nor does it equate to somehow being insensitive to the long term persecution of the Jews, or the horrible atrocities of the holocaust. It just means that she is a thinking person that understands that not all persecution, or all types of prejudices are racially driven – they can just as well be driven by ethnicity of all kinds. At least it might have brought up the issue for thought and discussion – which is probably a good thing.