Whoopi, ADL both embrace critical race theory

WASHINGTON – – Whoopi Goldberg has been suspended from “The View” after saying on air that the Holocaust was “not about race” because Nazis and Jews “are two White groups of people.” Her comments drew immediate pushback from the Anti-Defamation League, the nation’s leading organization charged with combating antisemitism. “No @ WhoopiGoldberg, the #Holocaust was about the Nazi’s systematic annihilation of the Jewish people

– – who they deemed to be an inferior race,” ADL chief executive Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted.

Funny, that’s not what the ADL website said. Before July 2020, the ADL correctly defined racism as “the belief that a particular race is superior or inferior to another, that a person’s social and moral traits are predetermined by his or her inborn biological characteristics.” It continued that racism is “the hatred of one person by another – – or the belief that another person is less than human – – because of skin color, language, customs, place of birth or any factor that supposedly reveals the basic nature of that person.” But that month, the ADL replaced that definition with a new woke version that declared racism is “the marginalization and/or oppression of (BEG ITAL)people of color(END ITAL) based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people” (emphasis added). In other words, the group charged with fighting antisemitism changed its definition of racism to (BEG ITAL)exclude(END ITAL) antisemitism.

That new definition of racism – – and Goldberg’s embrace of it – – is straight out of critical race theory, which holds that the struggle against racism is a struggle against “Whiteness.” As Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, authors of the book “Critical Race Theory: An Introduction,” explain, “Early in our history . . . Jews . . . were considered nonwhite – – that is, on a par with African Americans. Over time, they earned the prerogatives and social standing of whites by . . . acquiring wealth, sometimes by illegal or underground activity.” As a result, Jews are now part of what the ADL refers to the “socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people.” They are no longer oppressed, but members of the oppressor class.

This is a classic antisemitic trope – – that Jews are oppressors who keep others down by virtue of their wealth and control of the world’s money supply. It would also be news to many American Jews, who are victims of rising antisemitic violence in the United States. For the very organization whose mission is to defend them to embrace this radical ideology is shameful.

By the ADL’s new standard, what Goldberg said was perfectly kosher. On “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” she explained that the Nazis “had issues with ethnicity, not with race, because most of the Nazis were white people, and most of the people they were attacking were white people. So, to me, I’m thinking, ‘How can you say it’s about race if you are fighting each other?’” Well, if racism applies only to the “oppression of people of color,” then – – according to the ADL – – Goldberg was right. Of course, she was not right. As the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum tweeted Monday, “Racism was central to Nazi ideology. Jews were not defined by religion, but by race. Nazi racist beliefs fueled genocide and mass murder.”

Before her suspension, Goldberg invited Greenblatt on “The View” Tuesday to help her do damage control. “Well, Whoopi, there’s no question that the Holocaust was about race,” he said. “That’s how the Nazis saw it as they perpetrated the systematic annihilation of the Jewish people . . . . You see, Hitler’s ideology, the Third Reich, was predicated on the idea that the Aryans, the Germans, were a ‘master race,’ and the Jews were a subhuman race. It was racialized antisemitism.”

He was correct. But his words directly contradicted his organization’s own definition of racism.

So, in the wake of the Goldberg scandal, the ADL quietly changed its definition of racism again – – overnight expunging its new woke definition from its website, and replacing it with an anodyne “interim definition,” which reads: “Racism occurs when individuals or institutions show more favorable evaluation or treatment of an individual or group based on race or ethnicity.” They were hoping no one would notice. And so far, no one has challenged Greenblatt on it during his media tour absolving Goldberg.

Greenblatt accepted Goldberg’s apology, declaring that “we’re all capable of mistakes. And if you apologize sincerely, there’s an opportunity for repentance.” He’s absolutely right. Cancel culture is toxic. But maybe it’s time for Greenblatt to take his own advice and apologize for using the ADL’s platform to spread woke disinformation about what constitutes racism.

– – Follow Marc A. Thiessen on Twitter, @marcthiessen.