CNN anchor Chris Wallace drew an impassioned response when he asked Whoopi Goldberg why she finds the term African-American “so objectionable?”
Wallace interviewed the Hollywood legend and host of The View on Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace.
In one exchange, Wallace called back to a question he asked Smokey Robinson a few months ago, and asked Whoopi for her take on not wanting to be identified as “African-American”:
WALLACE: I want to finish off by asking you a little bit about your life. I read somewhere that you refuse to accept the term African American and I interviewed a year ago, I interviewed Smokey Robinson. And he said exactly the same thing. Here he is.
[CLIP]
WALLACE: Why do you find the phrase African Americans so objectionable?
GOLDBERG: Well because it’s it just seems like a hyphen. It’s a hyphenated thing, an African-American.
I worked in Africa. I’ve never lived in Africa. You know, I’m an American, through and through, I believe all the things that I’m entitled to in this country, to one vote one person, to be able to speak one’s mind.
It is one of the great things about the country and I’m proud of it. You know, there’s lots of things we we could be changing and lots of things we should not be doing.
But we are always in this position. We are always evolving as Americans. What what my biggest fear is is that people don’t remember the responsibility that you have as an American to vote. To get out there and vote.
I think of Ruby Bridges, Ruby Bridges is the little girl we always see in the Norman Rockwell painting and she was being taken to school by four officers. And we we have a bad habit of doing that in this country. We sometimes decide this is other and we made it okay to institutionalize racism.
But we have fought against this institution of racism, only to find ourselves back in the same trick bag where we’re saying, wait a minute. What do you mean you’re not going to teach Asian history or Black history? What do you mean “woke?” What does that mean?
Is it woke to know your country’s history, to be able to say hey, we could be doing much better, but we are doing these things which are not good for our people.
You know, and whether it’s with women or people of color, it’s all of these adjustments we all decided to make as Americans to each other. And now I see that being eroded and it– doesn’t scare me, it– That’s what pisses me off!
Watch above via Max’s Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace.
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