Whoopi Goldberg is calling on people to have “a little grace” for pop icon Janet Jackson following her comments about Kamala Harris.
Jackson sparked major controversy after she told UK newspaper The Guardian that she heard Kamala Harris is “not black” and that she was told her father is white, which is false.
Harris’ mother was South Asian and her father a Black man from Jamaica, and her race has frequently been at the center of right-wing smear campaigns.
The uproar over Jackson’s comments made its way to the discussion table on The View. But while the cohosts were critical, Goldberg called for people to give Jackson a break.
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In her comments, Jackson essentially admitted to being ignorant of the latest news, leading many to speculate whether she’d fallen prey to right-wing disinformation campaigns about Harris.
These campaigns have centered on, among other things, accusations that Harris is not actually Black and that her frequent “code-switching”—changing her speech patterns when holding rallies with predominately Black audiences—is a ploy to fake her racial identity to win votes.
When the topic came up on The View, cohost Ana Navarro said:
“What [Janet Jackson] did was spread misinformation. And I think it’s very irresponsible, when you have a platform the way Janet Jackson does, to use that platform carelessly, to spread misinformation based on a racist allegation by Donald Trump.”
But Goldberg was quick to jump in and offer some salient counterpoints about Jackson, framing the gaffe as part of our cultural insistence that celebrities be outspokenly political and have exactly the right politics.
She told her cohosts:
“Janet Jackson is not a political animal…”
“Sometimes people get it wrong, and they’re wrong. They made a mistake, they were wrong. It happens.”
“So, OK, a little grace for the girl. A little grace for the girl.”
Goldberg also added that Jackson is currently mourning her brother Tito Jackson, who passed away September 15 after having a heart attack.
She theorized that being lambasted in the media in the midst of that mourning is the likely reason for Jackson’s silence about the gaffe since the interview dropped.
On social media, many applauded Goldberg for taking a more measured approach to Jackson’s comments.
But the majority seemed to be more in line with Navarro’s thoughts on Jackson.
Particularly given Jackson’s lack of response to the uproar, many were not on Goldberg’s side.
Calling for someone’s head over their political comments never actually accomplishes anything.
But, be that as it may, it is pretty bracing to see that even someone like Janet Jackson is susceptible to far-right white nationalist propaganda. We live in strange times.
