Columnist, author, and former presidential speech writer John Podhoretz criticized “The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg, whose real name is Caryn Johnson, for her controversial comments about Jews, race, and the Holocaust, urging the actress to “give up” the surname she “co-opted” and doesn’t “deserve.”
Podhoretz said in a New York Post column published Tuesday that “performer Caryn Johnson” did not land on the last name “Goldberg” because it “signified ‘whiteness.'”
Johnson chose Goldberg “because it would represent the proud ownership of her outsider status. She wasn’t trying to blend in. She was doubling down — on race.”
Notably, the co-host insisted this week on “The View” that the targeting and extermination of millions of Jews during the Holocaust had nothing to do with “race.” After she was blasted for the comments, the host seemed to double-down and bypass an apology.
“I think of race as being something that I can see,” Goldberg told talk show host Stephen Colbert. “So, I see you and I know what race you are.”
“I understand,” she added. “I felt differently. I respect everything everyone is saying to me and I don’t want to fake apologize…I’m very upset that people misunderstood what I was saying.”
“Note, please, that Caryn Johnson didn’t become Whoopi Rockefeller,” Podhoretz pointed out. “No. She knew that by becoming Whoopi Goldberg, she would be choosing to flaunt in every way possible the fact that she was a minority person in a majority-white country. The ‘Goldberg’ was the cherry on top.”
Podhoretz called the host’s comments about Jews “stupid and almost jaw-droppingly offensive,” adding, “Six million people literally died because that wasn’t how the people who killed them thought about race.”
“Back when Johnson became Goldberg, Jews weren’t considered ‘white,’ exactly,” he wrote. “And they weren’t not-white either. The point here is that such a classification system is meaningless when it comes to Jews, no matter the color of their skin.”
“It’s obvious that a 2022 version of young Caryn Johnson would not choose the name Goldberg to gain that extra frisson of non-white pride,” Podhoretz said.
“Whoopi Goldberg should just drop the Goldberg now,” Podhoretz closed the post. “There are dozens of survivors of the Holocaust who bear the name — and an untold number who died in the Shoah with it. Caryn Johnson stains them both.”
As The Daily Wire highlighted, it was announced Tuesday evening that Goldberg is suspended for two weeks for her “wrong and hurtful comments.”
“Effective immediately, I am suspending Whoopi Goldberg for two weeks for her wrong and hurtful comments. While Whoopi has apologized, I’ve asked her to take time to reflect and learn about the impact of her comments. The entire ABC News organization stands in solidarity with our Jewish colleagues, friends and communities,” ABC News president Kim Godwin said in a statement.
Related: ‘Effective Immediately’: ABC Suspends Whoopi Goldberg Over ‘Wrong And Hurtful’ Holocaust Comments