On Feb. 13 of this year, Whoopi Goldberg returned to ABC's "The View" following a two-week suspension for comments she made about the Holocaust.
When suspending Ms. Goldberg, ABC News President Kim Godwin stated: "While Whoopi has apologized, I’ve asked her to take time to reflect and learn about the impact of her comments."
Rather than suspending Ms. Goldberg, ABC News and The View would have been better off using the situation to teach Ms. Goldberg, watchers of The View, and the general public about the Holocaust.
When one discusses or learns about the Holocaust, a common refrain is "Never Again."
The motto "Never Again," conveys the message that one will not allow the future murder and attempted extinction of a group of people as was done during the Holocaust.
One of the main ways to ensure such genocidal horror never occurs again is to educate.
It's through learning about the Holocaust, and the abject cruelty it brought, that one understands how such devastation occurred, why it was not stopped, and how future mass-murders on such a truly horrendous scale can be prevented.
ABC News and "The View" could have used the publicity around Ms. Goldberg as an impetus to teach people about the Holocaust.
As Ms. Goldberg learned, viewers would have gained knowledge along with her.
Whoopi Goldberg could have interviewed survivors and/or historians.
She could have done segments at the concentration camps in Europe or tours at the U.S. Holocaust Museum and Yad Vashem in Israel. It's difficult to comprehend that the Holocaust resulted in the murder of six million Jews and millions of others.
It's equally challenging, if not more so, to understand how it was allowed occur.
Video of concentration camps, interviews with survivors, pictures, Nazi propaganda, and news reports during that time (c. 1933-1945) can help the education process in this regard.
"The View" could have taught people via these methods through program segments.
The show has a viewership of 2.392 million total viewers and, since the controversy was headline news, many millions more followed the story. With "The View's" regular audience along with the viewership of those interested in the controversy, one can only imagine how many people would have learned about the Holocaust.
In the discussion about Adolf Hitler's program of genocide on "The View," Whoopi Goldberg tied into the theme of "Never Again" by making the salient point that the Holocaust "was about man's inhumanity to man" (at 4:53 in this video).
While the Holocaust was also about vile hatred toward Jews and other groups, Ms. Goldberg's comment is very insightful. Ms. Goldberg correctly points out that humans are capable of horrible things, and she implies that humans must be vigilant against evil.
Whoopi Goldberg should have never been suspended because there is no evidence that she is antisemitic or a Holocaust denier.
As Ms. Goldberg admitted, she merely was unaware of how the Nazis viewed Jews as a race. Rather than suspend Ms. Goldberg, ABC and "The View" should have had Ms. Goldberg learn about the Holocaust on-air, and, while she did so, millions of others would have learned along with her. Such an education would have helped humanity move fully toward the goal of "Never Again."
Michael B. Abramson is a practicing attorney. He is also an adviser with the National Diversity Coalition for Trump. He is the host of the "Advancing the Agenda" podcast and the author of "A Playbook for Taking Back America: Lessons from the 2012 Presidential Election." Follow him on his website and Twitter, @mbabramson. Read Michael B. Abramson's Reports — More Here.
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