While having a conversation during Hot Topics on The View and speaking about a teacher who recently used the N-word inside a Missouri classroom, Whoopi Goldberg reflected on some the slurs at The View — particularly with show creator and longtime cohost, Barbara Walters who died in December at age 93.
“We used to have this conversation every couple of months on this show, because Barbara would pose that same question: ‘Well, why can’t I say it?’ I said, ‘Well, go ahead and do it. See what happens.’ Because people want to know. I say, ‘Well, you can say it. Go ahead,'” Goldberg said of Walters, who left the show in 2014, on Wednesday’s episode.
As we previously reported, Sherri Shepherd had a similar altercation with Walters back in 2011 when the panel discussed the controversial name of Rick Perry’s hunting camp that incorporated the racist word. “I heard you say it, and it was fine. You said it a different way,” Shepherd said to Goldberg, before turning to Walters.
“When I heard you say it, I didn’t like the way you said it,” Shepherd told the journalist. “I know, it’s a semantics thing. There’s something that goes through my body.”
“So, what you’re saying is it’s because I’m white that I shouldn’t use the word. So, no white person should use that word?” Walters questioned. “I’m repeating what was on the rock [reportedly standing at the camp’s entrance.]”
We still haven’t understood why this word is such a big discussion, but Sunny Hostin recently spoke on the usage of the word and said, “A lot of folks in the African American community believe that by using it, they’re reclaiming that word. I don’t have that belief. My belief is that it should not be used because it’s a racial slur, by anyone. But, the fact of the matter is that I maintain that this teacher should’ve stuck to acute angles and triangles and things like that,” she said, to which Goldberg responded with a further assessment of who can and can’t say it.
“Whenever people who are not Black say this to me, ‘Why can’t I say it?’ I always say, ‘Go ahead. You know, I might not punch you out, but somebody else might,'” she said. “But, that’s up to you to find out. If you’re not interested in finding out what happens if you do say it, I suggest you don’t say it and just keep moving on with other things.”