Nothing in my REDACTED years of life on this planet could have led me to guess that Janet Jackson would be the next public figure to jump on that QAnon bandwagon, but here we are. As we’ve covered, Janet Jackson had an insane interview in The Guardian over the weekend in which she purported that VP Harris’s father was “discovered” to be white. He is not. Kamala Harris is biracial, Black and Indian. These are facts. Well it seems Whoopi Goldberg thought the world was judging Janet too harshly; on Monday’s episode of The View she said “sometimes people get it wrong” and that we should show Janet “a little grace.” [Insert side eye here]
Whoopi Goldberg is offering a mea culpa for her friend Janet Jackson after the pop icon stirred controversy with her recent remarks on Vice President Kamala Harris.
During an interview with The Guardian published Saturday, Jackson cast doubt on Harris’ biracial identity when asked about the prospect of the U.S. having its “first female Black president,” alleging that Harris is not Black.
The Democratic presidential nominee’s father, Donald Harris, is from Jamaica, while her late mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was Indian. Jackson claimed in the interview that Donald Harris was “discovered” to be white.
Jackson’s comments quickly led to backlash online. Goldberg, who co-starred with Jackson in the 2010 Tyler Perry drama “For Colored Girls,” addressed the fallout during a panel discussion on “The View” Monday.
“Sometimes people get it wrong and they’re wrong! They make a mistake; they were wrong. It happens,” Goldberg said, adding that Jackson is not a “political animal.”
“Anybody who says it doesn’t happen to every one of us, multiracial or not, we all do it. So OK, a little grace for the girl. A little grace for the girl,” Goldberg said.
However, Goldberg’s co-host, political commentator Ana Navarro, wasn’t so quick to let bygones be bygones.
“Look, I think Janet Jackson — like every other American, whether you’re a celebrity or not — has a right to endorse, support or not support whomever they want,” Navarro said. “She’s got every right to not like Kamala Harris if she doesn’t want to. 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 Donald Trump.”
Jackson’s remarks on Harris’ race echo those of former President Donald Trump. During a July appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists convention, the Republican presidential nominee said he “didn’t know (Harris) was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black.”
Ah, Whoopi. Never afraid to champion the unpopular and/or offensive opinion. Multiple things can be true at once. Do I think we live in a culture that is very unforgiving? Absolutely. But I think Ana Navarro nailed it in her assessment: “What she did was spread misinformation. And I think it’s very irresponsible … to spread misinformation based on a racist allegation by Donald Trump.” Bingo (and I never thought I’d see eye to eye with Ana on anything after her unhinged rant that all raccoons should die). Janet should’ve known better; she’s been a public figure with a strong following for decades. And perhaps I’m being nitpicky with words here, but I found Whoopi’s phrasing of “a little grace for the girl,” to be infantilizing to Janet. There has to be a middle ground between letting people make mistakes, which they hopefully learn and grow from, and not letting people off the hook for spreading misinformation. Especially given the state of the world today.
photos credit: IMAGO/Faye Sadou / Avalon and Getty
Maybe Goldberg has something in her closet which she’ll need a bit of grace.
She might know her socially. Whoopi always defends her friends on the View, regardless of what crazy thing they say or do.
Judging by these pics, Whoopi’s *literal* closet could use some grace. Yikes, lol.
Why are we bullying someone for their personal taste in clothing\/ if we all dressed the same, life would be very boring.
Whoopi got it wrong in defending little Janet. Little Janet needs to grow up and stop listening to her MAGA idiot brother. Janet must stop being a perpetual little girl she is raising a biracial child. Whoopi gotta stop defending her because Janet is wrong and doesn’t want to correct.
Whoopi would do her friend Janet a much bigger favor, if she (Whoopi) were to have a come-to-Jesus talk with Janet.
Yep, this woman is 58 years old. Time to grow TF up.
Celebrities should stop talking about issues they haven’t researched in print. Janet Jackson has decades of experience in the business. She should know this.
I agree. They are public figures and so what they say about issues and politics has an air of legitimacy they haven’t necessarily earned.
The pinnacle for me was George Clooney’s NYT Op-Ed demanding that Biden pull out of the race. It may have been the coup de grâce for Biden. Clooney, unlike Jackson, is informed, but it’s not like he’s an elected official or part of an NGO-he has no official capacity in anything. He’s an actor with a wife who does have legitimacy in the legal community whispering in his ear.
Yeah, I’ve got a bit of a chip on my shoulder about that, but let’s move on. I just wanted to throw out example that shows the power that celebrities wield over their “base”.
With great power comes responsibility, so celebs, get your facts straight before you speak out!
Janet Jackson knew exactly what she was doing by saying that mess. The right wing nowadays are quite militant and keen to get their message across, to their benefit. She’s perfectly aware of what her platform is. We need to quit giving these people a pass because that’s how they get away with it. And how we end up in the bullcrap we’re in now.
Janet talking this nonsense just shows again why celebs either get their facts correct or keep quiet.
WG should have stayed quiet too.
Just let it die off. Trumps team wants any attention, ignore.
She knows what she’s saying. Let’s stop this fiction.
Whoopi gets ALL the side eye. If Janet’s a girl, I’m an infant. And Janet is doubling down, still walking in the “mistake.” Why is Whoopi apologizing for someone who isn’t sorry?
It must be nice to have Whoopi as a friend, you can say the most awful things and she’ll be there to put a bow on it and sprinkle some potpourri around it.
I am sorry, but Janet is over fifty and not a child. She doubled down on her comments and is MAGA like her brother Randy.
Yes, sometimes I think it’s hard for people to admit that certain celebrities are just stupid. Talented, hell yeah but nothing about Janet ever came across as well read, articulate or intelligent.
A platform comes with the obligation to use it responsibly.
Full. Stop.
In her mind, she is. Look at her wording carefully in all this. Says the misinformation and then couches it with “that’s what I was told.” Classic blameshift and plausible deniability. Sad part, as demonstrated on this thread, is that it worked.
Yes. Sometimes, people do get it wrong, and we should be forgiving and allow people to learn and grow. If Janet had let the faux walkback stand, this would have already been forgiven and forgotten. Instead, she doubled down on hateful ignorance.
The Democrats have got to start openly combating conspiracy theories. The right seems to be planting this narrative in certain sites. Because of the electoral college, this election is coming down to the wire and going to come down to about 100,000 voters (or less) in the swing states. The counry has been saddled with this orange nightmare for nearly a decade because the magats have fed disinformation to the most gullible traditional Democratic voters and managed to poach enough from key demographics to win. Stay focused. Vote blue!
Not surprised this coming from “It wasn’t rape rape” Goldberg
This non-story achieves only one objective: to maintain a controversy around Kamala Harris.
Ana Navarro sounds like my Never Trump relatives here, and while I’m surprised to be cheering her remark, thank goodness she said something!
“What she did is spread misinformation.”
Yes, this! It is a huge problem and has been since Trump normalized this! It shouldn’t be that difficult to say that lying is wrong.
Navarro makes some sense, here and again. It’s the Stopped Clock principle.
Whoopi, always defending people who do wrong things. She an awful person.
Sorry, but F Janet Jackson and F Whoopi. I’m with Ana. It’s irresponsible to spread misinformation, especially racist misinformation, especially when you could correct yourself with a thirty-second Google search. Information about Kamala’s father is not hard to fine.
Janet Jackson is not a girl, she is the same age as T**** was in the Access Hollywood tape (almost exactly, actually). Are we giving him grace for that too, Whoopi?
This from a woman who insisted that the Holocaust was “not about race,” but rather “man’s inhumanity to man.” And who said Roman Polanski raping a 13 year old girl wasn’t a “rape-rape”, and her defense of Bill Cosby. Why she gets airtime is beyond me.
I agree with Whoopi if Janet had let her “apology” stand, but to redact the apology and say nothing? Nah, her grace is gone then
Let me blast the elephant in the room- Janet knew exactly what she was saying. The fact she doubled down should open y’all’s eyes to that. She couched it in plausible deniability and blame shifted by saying “That’s what I was told.” The right wing (I refuse to capitalise that and legitimise them that way) are especially militant nowadays and are pushing their message in any way they can figure out. I personally have had to cut off so many dear to me because they were that militant in their recruitment efforts. It’s the manipulative ones like this that you need to watch for. She was raised in a cult and went on to marry an extremely conservative Muslim nam. Y’all think she’s broken away from that now? Nah. Especially not with her batshit MAGA loser brother in her ear. Who knows how much her other Nation of Islam humping brother’s telling her too. Wake up and pay attention, y’all. This is how we got here. Shrugging things off and making excuses.