Whoopi Goldberg has issued an apology after saying the Holocaust was "not about race" during a discussion on The View.
During the Jan. 31 episode, the daytime show's co-hosts analyzed the recent decision made by a Tennessee school board to remove Maus, an award-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, from an eighth-grade language arts curriculum. Amid the discussion, Goldberg said that the Holocaust was "not about race" adding that "it's about man's inhumanity to man."
Following her comments, Goldberg faced backlash online for her commentary on the subject matter, and later that evening, she shared a statement to social media.
"On today's show, I said the Holocaust is not about race, but about man's inhumanity to man," she wrote. "I should have said it is about both. As Jonathan Greenblatt from the Anti-Defamation League shared, ‘The Holocaust was about the Nazi's systematic annihilation of the Jewish people—who they deemed to be an inferior race.' I stand corrected."
"The Jewish people around the world have and always will have my support and that will never waiver," she added. "I'm sorry for the hurt that I have caused."
That same night, she also addressed the matter during her appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
"It upset a lot of people which was never ever ever ever my intention," she said to host Stephen Colbert. "I thought it was a salient discussion because as a black person, I think of race as being something that I can see. People were very angry, and they said, ‘No, no, we are a race,' and I understand."
"People, you know, decided I was all these other things I'm actually not," Goldberg continued. "I'm incredibly torn up by being told these things about myself. And I get it, folks are angry. I accept that and I did it to myself. This was my thought process and I'll work hard not to think that way again."
The following day, Goldberg also issued a verbal apology while on air.
"I said something that I feel a responsibility for not leaving unexamined because my words upset so many people, which was never my intention," she said during the Feb. 1 episode of The View. "And I understand why now and for that I am deeply, deeply grateful because the information I got was really helpful and helped me understand some different things."
"And while discussing that one Tennessee School Board unanimously voted to remove a graphic novel about the Holocaust, I said that the Holocaust wasn't about race, and it was instead about man's inhumanity to man," she continued. "But it is indeed about race, because [Adolf] Hitler and the Nazis considered Jews to be an inferior race. Now words matter and mine are no exception. I regret my comments, as I said, and I stand corrected. I also stand with the Jewish people, as they know and y'all know, because I've always done that."