Her suspension from 'The View was announced in a statement released by US network ABC News on Tuesday night after Goldberg issued a public apology.
“Effective immediately, I am suspending Whoopi Goldberg for two weeks for her wrong and hurtful comments,” Kim Godwin, president of ABC News, wrote in the statement.
“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, family, and communities.”
Goldberg made the comments during a discussion about a Tennessee school board’s decision to ban the Pulitzer prize-winning Holocaust graphic novel, Maus.
“Let’s be truthful, the Holocaust isn’t about race, it’s not. It’s about man’s inhumanity to man, that’s what it’s about. These are two groups of white people,” she said on The View on Monday.
She continued: “You’re missing the point … let’s talk about it for what it is. It’s about how people treat each other. It’s a problem. It doesn’t matter if you’re black or white, Jews … everybody eats each other.”
The Auschwitz Memorial and StopAntisemitism.org are among organizations that have condemned her comments, with Jonathan Greenblatt from the Anti-Defamation League calling her comments “dangerous”.
In a statement posted on Twitter the same day, Goldberg offered her “sincerest apologies”. She wrote: “On today’s show I said the Holocaust ‘is not about race, but about man’s inhumanity to man’. I should have said it is about both … I stand corrected. The Jewish people around the world have always had my support and that will never (waver). I am sorry for the hurt I have caused.”
— Whoopi Goldberg (@WhoopiGoldberg) February 1, 2022
After her apology, Greenblatt publicly thanked Goldberg for “acknowledging the Holocaust for what it was”. He then appeared with Goldberg during the start of Tuesday’s episode of The View, during which she again apologized.