'The View' Host Whoopi Goldberg Addresses Her Experience During Her First Show Back After Suspension.
"Yes, I am back."
That's what embattled comedian/talk show host Whoopi Goldberg said to begin the first episode of The View since her suspension two weeks ago. Her temporary hiatus was due to her controversial comments about the Holocaust when she claimed it was "not about race."
Goldberg made the point to say in her first show back on the air,
"We're going to keep having tough conversations. And in part, because this is what we've been hired to do. And it's not always pretty, as I said, and it is not always as other people would like to hear. But it is an honor to sit at this table and be able to have these conversations, because they are important. They are important to us as a nation and to us more so as a human entity."
Her return was not entirely an apologetic one, but more of a realization of her opinion not being as well thought out as she had believed.
"I gotta tell you, there's something kind of marvelous about being on a show like this because we are The View, and this is what we do, and sometimes we don't do this as elegantly as we could ... It's five minutes to get in important information about topics. And that is what we try to do every day."
She went on to, "thank everybody who reached out while I was away, and I'm telling you people reached out from places that made me go, 'Wait, wait, what? Really? Okay.' And it was amazing and I listened to everything everybody had to say and I was very grateful and I hope it keeps all the important conversations happening."
Not to say she wasn't remorseful, rather Goldberg, as stated on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where she discussed how she didn't want to "fake apologize" her way out of the issue,
"I feel, being Black, when we talk about race, it's a very different thing to me. So I said I thought the Holocaust wasn't about race. And people got very angry and still are angry. I'm getting a lot of mail from folks and a lot of real anger. But I thought it was a salient discussion because as a Black person, I think of race as being something that I can see. So I see you and know what race you are."
It is good to see how Whoopi took this time off to reflect on the error in her argument, which is all any of us can do at the end of the day. And isn't that really what a constructive discussion is about? Finding a common ground while seeing things from another's perspective.
