Whoopi Goldberg, the American actor (her choice), comedian and TV presenter, has put her foot in it again, with an ill-chosen comment about the Holocaust, which has had her suspended from her chat show The View for two weeks. She has had an award-strewn career for films and on stage. But also a track record of defending the indefensible – Bill Cosby, Roman Polanski, Mel Gibson – before having to backtrack.
Born 13 November 1955 12.48pm New York, she has a heavily populated, opinionated 9th house with her Scorpio Sun, Saturn, Moon and Mercury there. She has a super-confident if a touch over-pushy Jupiter Pluto in Leo in her 7th square her Sun Saturn so she does come on strong; and her Mercury is also in an outspoken (blurt it out) square to Uranus. Her Uranus is also trine a charming Venus in colourful Sagittarius in her 10th. Plus she has a driven-by-unconscious-forces Mars Neptune in her 8th.
She looks rattled at the moment with tr Saturn just over the square to her Moon and tr Uranus heading for a final unsettling opposition to her Moon in March. Then she has the downbeat tr Saturn square her Sun, on and off all year, as it criss-crosses her Ascendant into her lower profile First Quadrant for some years to come. Plus there is an enthusiasm-dampening tr Saturn opposition her Jupiter Pluto conjunction early next year. Not to mention the Scorpio and Taurus Eclipses will rattle her Mercury, Moon, Sun and Saturn in 2022/23 which will brew up a few more challenges.
Her Neptune is also spreading confusion around as tr Pluto squares it from this March, on and off till late 2023; and in 2023 her Solar Arc Sun squares her Neptune as well. So muddles and indecision, partly perhaps over financial matters but also affecting other areas. She is moving into a less successful few years ahead though it may take a while to kick in.
Not her favourite year or two, for sure.
I’ve been trying to disentangle my thinking on this.
Whoopi Goldberg said the Holocaust genocide was “not about race. It was instead about “man’s inhumanity to man.” And it involved “two white groups of people.” Race, she said, is something “I can see.”
Hitler on the other hand regarded the Jews as a physically impure Slavic-descended race, in contrast to what he termed the blonde, blue-eyed genetically pure German Aryan race. In 1919 he said, “The Jews are unquestionably a race, not a religious community. Through inbreeding for thousands of years, the Jew has been able to preserve his race and his racial characteristics much more successfully than most of the numerous people among whom he lives. As a result we have in the midst a non-German, alien race unwilling and indeed unable to shed its racial characteristics.” Jews, he concluded, “amount to a racial-tuberculosis of the nation”.
Sociologists and Critical Race Theorists insist ‘race is a social construct’ which advances the interests of white people at the expense of people of colour.
It’s one of those jargon tropes which turns into a mantra parroted by those usually punting a narrow party line. The term race has been in common usage since man started recording history – the Anglo-Saxons (Germanic tribes), the Celts, the Vikings, the Mongolians etc etc. It isn’t pin-downable but it is broadly understood.
The problem was its misuse by geneticists of the 19th and 20th Century as a weapon for discrimination, dividing groups of people of similar ethnicity/nationality into superior and inferior. And in recent times it has been hijacked by the opposite lobby in the US, who are trying to ring-fence racial discrimination only to that suffered by people of colour.
What seems to be one problem here is the consequence of making global generalisations about race and racial discrimination from the extreme and narrowly focused American experience. Which is where Whoopi Goldberg went wrong – though she’s old enough to know better and may well have been throwing a grenade into the pool as a deliberate provocation to stir up a reaction = attention. As is her wont.
Anyone who would use anything that Hitler published as fact needs to his head examined.
Everything that the Nazis published or spoke was for propaganda purposes not to impart facts.
Rumor has it Whoopi planned to retire this year anyway. I wonder if she was “following orders” so that she could. Yes, I know the comments she made were not out of character for her.
Anyone else remember the time when she dated Ted Danson & they both went to some event wearing black face? If you go to search engines to find images you’ll see cropped images showing only Ted Danson. No images of Whoopi in black face.
Interesting stuff on Whoopi’s wiki page. where she asserts “ I just know I am Jewish “, though later Skip Gates found no ancestral link.
Turns out she IS a Karen – since day one, as Caryn Elaine Johnson is the name on her birth certificate.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whoopi_Goldberg
Saturn in Aquarius … cracking down on unconventional views.
Race is a social construct created to justify the brutal cruelty of enslavement and colonization of people of color. No biological or genetic reality to race. American experience has been on color. The Nazis used the US racist Black Codes/Jim Crow laws as template for their laws against Jews. Defining Jews as an inferior race was Nazi madness drawing on centuries of Christian persecution of Jews. Scientific racism the junk science of the 19th century justifed slavery. Samuel George Morton most famous anthropologist of his time promoted theory of polygenism. The belief that different races were different species with White the highest and Black near savages. He collected thousand of skulls, a collection maintained at the University of Pennsylvania claiming Black skulls capacity proved their inferiority. Louis Agassiz a Swiss-American scientiest that revealed the last ice age was 10,000 yrs ago was a disciple. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_George_Morton His books were hugely popular especially in slave states. All junk science with arguments Darwin destroyed. Modern genetic and biology confirm we are one species. Christian denominations had paralell ideology saying Black were the cursed descendent of Ham. Ham, the son of Noah was cursed bc he found his father naked in bed after drinking too much wine. Southern Christians used this. Brigham Young and Mormons founded their pro-slavery views with belief Black carried Curse of Cain. Racism in America has been based on skin color. Whoopie has a large collection of Jim Crow racist artifacts. Can understand how she’d be confused by bizarre Nazi view of Jews as a race. US madness around race from the Mars in Gemin square Virgo Neptune. Violent separation of the races witha fetish of racial purity. One drop of Black blood from the mother meant the child was Negro and a slave. The concept of hypodescent meant blue eyed blonds were slaves altho their DNA could be 90% from White men. 80% of African American have European DNA. 20% of White identified have African DNA. Think many that could pass as white did pass to avoid the violent restrictions on African Americans. Hopefully Whoopie will rise to the challenge and help educate Americans on our antiquate ignorant concepts of race.
Thank you for putting all of this information so succinctly, Scot.
Just read your comment again and I think it’s quite profound that you explained: “US madness around race from the Mars in Gemini square Virgo Neptune. Violent (Mars) separation of the races (Gemini/twins/dual/two halves of a whole) with a fetish of racial purity (Virgo Neptune). Really interesting how you’ve highlighted those aspects and how much sense that makes …more to ponder, thank you.
Yea I also found it a very interesting read too. I am surprised that Mars in Gemini Square Neptune in Virgo manifested in such an atrocious hateful way though. I get Violent Mars and Pure Virgo but how is race linked? And with Gemini? Neptune? Someone please enlighten me some more. Thanks
Im no great astrologer, Jennifer E and hopefully Scot will see your question but my interpretation is Neptune in Virgo would be the illusion of (racial) purity and the square represents the challenge of integrating the two sides – Gemini. I have read where Uranus represents the racial strife in the US chart (so long ago that I can’t remember where) but Scot’s thoughts are interesting to me.
Hmm, not sure I would point to that in the US chart. Gemini maybe – it was Sun in the 1910 South Africa Chart. But Mars square Neptune I’d rather connect to Hollywood and showbiz glamour. If anything it tends not to be aggressive – Neptune blunts the violence.
The Air Grand Trine of Mars trine Saturn trine Moon – can be cruel and ideologically blinkered – which added to the toxic Mercury opposition Pluto would not help. Plus so much Cancer which tends to be tribal/family oriented which inevitably leads to an us and them perspective underneath. But all of this is just fishing – it isn’t obvious.
Thanks Barb and Marjorie. Very interesting.
It says a lot that Goldberg couldn’t back down or amend her “View” until paycheck and platform were put on the block. Not even when co hosts and Colbert gave her some outs, pre-suspension.
She may have lucked out to Only receive a suspension and not be fired, as so many have for similar offenses. Being a Black woman during Black History Month probably saved her – though that mixed apology suggests she feels unfairly treated.
It’s a burden to all people, the intolerance, the irate stances, the threat of cancel culture. My sense is Whoopi can’t accept that racism reaches far beyond her – that it hits all of us . Its stressful and sad that her misplaced passion couldn’t have been talked through and resolved…as it indicates silencing and job loss continue will continue to threaten the honest communication needed for peacemaking, understanding, and – one day please – transcendence of the racial tension that is, at this point, America.
Maybe you missed it but they had an expert on the View for a teachable moment this past Monday.
What else did they want Whoopie to do?
Whoopi is weird. Ww2 was not a good war. Lots of discrimination Whoopi. There was genocide of many races, and sexual , orientation too.
And disabled people
Whoopi’s remarks are incredibly stupid, to say the least.
I’ve no doubt, she will be slowly dropped from many high-profile shows and appearances as a direct result of her
crass comments. Fools rush in, where angels fear to tread……
How are her comments stupid?
How can being Jewish be a race when people like Ivanka Trump and the late black actress Nell Carter convert to Judaism and become Jewish?
Being Jewish is a religion and an ethnicity, but not a race.
Besides the Nazis murdered other groups because they fell into the category of ‘undesirables’ so Whoopie was correct what the Nazis did was man’s inhumanity to man.
Yep, more than one thing can be true at a time.
How can they not be mutually exclusive?
Race is passed down through genes/birth.
As I stated people convert to Judaism all of the time so being Jewish can’t be based on genetics.
The fact this furore is preceding a Saturn transit through her first quadrant is really not a good sign for her worldly success.
Saturn opp her Jupiter/Pluto conj next year? Oof.
Our Jewish friends still have a lot of sway in Hollywood, and she’s a POC so certain factors of society will be calling for her head.
She’s gotten away with a lot of nonsense over the years, to be fair. I guess it’s one comment too many this time? We’ll see.
I think some of her ire indicates a fatigue with the show . She wants the platform – in theory anyway – but anytime I’ve tripped upon The View it feels like a bunch of unhappy people at job that’s hard to give up.