ABC’s The View spent their first segment on Monday addressing the controversial comments made by Janet Jackson about Vice President Kamala Harris’s race. While they had a lot of criticism for the superstar, co-host Whoopi Goldberg jumped to her defense, saying she made a mistake.
What she doesn’t know what she 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 [former President] Donald Trump.
Navarro was referring to Trump’s comments that started at his NABJ interview in July, during which he falsely claimed that Harris “turn[ed] Black” after saying she was Indian. Harris is both Indian and Black. Jackson was quoted in The Guardian as saying: “Well, you know what they supposedly said? She’s not Black. That’s what I heard. That she’s Indian.” She also said: “I was told that they discovered her father was White.”
Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin seemed to give Jackson the benefit of the doubt, saying that many people “live in information silos” and get their news in ways that prevent them from seeing certain stories. She posited that Jackson was “not looking at great sources of media.” These sentiments were echoed by co-host Sara Haines, who pointed out just how bad the spread of misinformation has become.
But co-host Sunny Hostin, who is also of mixed race like Harris, had a different perspective:
I will say this — I would handle this the way Kamala Harris has, and that is to give it no air. I think Kamala is breaking barriers just by being in the room, regardless of whether Janet Jackson thinks she’s Black or White or or Indian. The very fact that she is in the room deconstructs, in my view, the alleged societal norms that we’ve seen in the nearly 250 years of this country of what a presidential candidate looks like. And so I think that that is what matters most. And I also think that when you are biracial or multiracial, you do get to identify yourself in any way in which you choose to identify yourself. Now, she has identified herself as a Black woman. She has also said that her mother is Asian. She didn’t just become Black. And so it’s unfortunate that Janet Jackson — an icon — admittedly said, “I don’t know. I haven’t been reading the news these past few days.” So, I don’t know if it comes from misinformation. I don’t know if it comes from a lack of information. But all I know is that I don’t want to give it this much air.
Goldberg, however, had a much stronger defense for Jackson, whom she described as “not a political animal” and added that she was mourning her brother Tito Jackson, who passed away recently:
Goldberg: You know, sometimes I’ve said stuff. And you know, I was wrong. But people want you to say something right away. You know, when people are coming at you saying, “Hey, you’re not paying — you’re dumb, you don’t know” — you don’t want to answer people, especially if–
Griffin: And you’re afraid you’ll get it wrong in answering them.
Goldberg: And it is a pain in the butt, I have to tell you. So, sometimes, yeah, sometimes people get it wrong and they’re wrong. They made a mistake. They were wrong. It happens. Anybody who says it doesn’t happen to every one of us, multiracial or not, we all do it. So, okay. A little grace for the girl. A little grace for the girl, all right?
