Whoopie Goldberg and the Uses and Abuses of "Race"

Poor Caryn Johnson, aka Whoopie Goldberg, never had a chance. The word "race" has been in the English lexicon for centuries, and always had a fluid meaning, depending on time and place. Traps were just waiting to ensnare the poor dear.

Race entered English from the French "racine", meaning root, as in what are your roots, as in: where do you come from and who are your people. It was often a synonym for tribe or clan, meaning a group of people with a common ancestor; a clearly biological sense.

But also, race often meant ethnicity. The English would speak of the English race, the Welsh race, the Scottish race. There are no biological differences between these groups of people. Rather, they differ in languages and customs, thus an entirely socially constructed meaning.

Sometimes, both meanings apply. For instance, tribe is a biological concept, but the importance of tribes is a socially constructed concept. That's what we mean when we say some societies are tribal and some societies are not. I.e., as a matter of biology, tribes always exist---your distant relatives always exist---whether you pay attention to them or not is a social matter.

In the 19th century, it was natural for biologists to want to construct a taxonomy of people, just as they had constructed taxonomies of plants and animals. If you can distinguish between deciduous and evergreen trees, between elms and maples, between dromedary and Bactrian camels, between lion and tiger cats, between wolves and dogs, etc., it seemed obvious you should be able to distinguish between peoples. These would be classifications, based exclusively on biology, and much bigger than tribe or nation. Biologists adopted the word "race" to this purpose, turning it into a term of art. I.e., biologists used the word differently from everybody else.

In the early 20th century, however, came the Nazis and other very unscientific people who tried to use the biological meaning of race for their own purposes, with horrific results. After WWII, the backlash was extreme, with similarly horrific results, if on a smaller scale.

I.e., the modern Leftists make the same kind of mistake the Nazis made, by confusing culture and biology.  Where the Nazis believed everything cultural was biological, the Leftists believe everything biological is cultural. The Nazis denied culture, the Leftists deny biology.

Once the Left denied biology in race, despite the evidence of their own eyes, it was but a small step to deny biology in sex, despite the evidence of their own eyes. Race, like sex, is whatever the Left say it is. Unsurprisingly, the Left define race in a manner convenient to their political agenda.

Let's review. Over the centuries, race has had both a biological meaning and a socially constructed meaning, sometimes both at the same time. The biological meanings are different, depending on who is using the word and why, and the social meanings are different, depending on who is using the word and why. You can see the problem.

Whoopie Goldberg is an obviously intelligent woman, but of limited education. While she is familiar enough with the modern Leftist definition of race, she is unaware of its arbitrary, self-serving nature, and she is wholly ignorant of its other meanings and uses. She certainly knew nothing of how the Nazis used the word. And that is how she got into trouble opining on the Holocaust. The poor girl did not know what hit her.

In her defense, Whoopie Goldberg is not any more ignorant than the other girls on "The View". In a better world, "The View" would not exist, at all.