Impossible to forgive Whoopi Goldberg

I really hate the phrase “it’s a teachable moment.” People use it whenever they want to pretend that someone who messed up is going to regret her mistakes. Usually, the type of person who needs a teachable moment doesn’t regret her mistakes. This whole idea of redemption is wishful thinking, because very few people come out the other side of a major debacle with humility and self-awareness. More often than not, they regret the fallout from their actions, but not the actions themselves. Or, in the alternative, the only lesson they’re willing to learn from that “mistake” is how to hide it, the next time around.

If I sound cynical, I am. Sixty years of studying human nature have taught me that people do not want to do the heavy lifting towards true penitence. They want to be perceived as remorseful, but then they demand we forgive them. Forgiveness is earned, not mandated.

I don’t forgive Whoopi Goldberg for being a privileged putz. I doubt she’s a true anti-Semite, although who knows. Jew-hating is a common activity among the woke preachers of the 21st c entury, just as anti-Catholicism has been an acceptable “flaw” in otherwise tolerant folk. But again, I’m pretty sure Whoopi doesn’t harbor animus towards the children of Abraham.

But she’s a privileged, liberal loudmouth who’s made a career standing in judgment of lesser humans. Actually, a second career. Once upon a time, she was actually quite humorous and charming, a comedian with classic timing. That was before she started hating conservative white people, many of whom spent good money on her shows. And I don’t forgive her for that.

I also don’t forgive her for presuming that she can use her bully pulpit to rewrite history, and tell the world that the Holocaust wasn’t about race. I don’t forgive her for implying that the thing that attracts bigots and places innocents in danger is the color of their skin. When Whoopi actually suggested that her Jewish friend could avoid a racially motivated assault because he was protected by his melanin (or lack thereof,) I literally got sick to my stomach. The

revulsion started in my gut and crept up to my heart. What a demented thing to believe. Worse yet, to articulate it.

What Whoopi did in saying that the Holocaust was not about killing Jews was to erase them. What she did was, in her own sly way, was dehumanization. She needed to make her own, personal brand of racism (anti-Black) into the only “official” sort of racism. She denied the truth, represented in the Shoah, of six million shredded destinies. And she did it over again, even after presenting a forced pseudo apology.

Is there anything worse than fabricated remorse? We can smell it, and Whoopi’s apology had a mighty stench. It was the “I’m sorry” of someone who resented being called out. And it should not be accepted.

Firing Whoopi is not a true cancellation. Her voice will resonate in the huge echo chambers of the left, because, as her former colleague Megan McCain noted, “I don’t believe there is any universe where she could possibly do anything that could get her fired — she is the crown jewel of `The View’ and a pop culture icon.”

My friend Paul Missan, an attorney and proud Nether Providence graduate who cherishes his faith and identity as a Jewish man and father of proud Jewish children, wrote this to me in the wake of Whoopi’s comments:

“To me it is very reprehensible the double standard that Jews have to live with in this ultra-liberal environment where it is OK for someone to make a blatantly anti-Semitic statement while synagogues are being attacked and Jews are murdered and held hostage. Can you imagine the outrage if someone said that slavery was not racist? Well slavery was racist. And there’s no greater example of racism then the Holocaust where six million Jews were murdered because of their race. The fact is that looking Caucasian does not prevent one from being victimized in a hate crime.”

I can’t say it any better than that.

And if we’re really looking for a teachable moment, let’s take away this lesson: inhumanity comes in every shade of being, victimizes every race, targets every creed and crushes the invisible, colorless spirit of every creature known to God.