Whoopi Goldberg Defends News Anchor Fired Over Snoop Dogg Lyrics, Laments That ‘It’s Hard To Keep Up’ With What You Can and Cannot Say
Whoopi Goldberg defended a Mississippi news anchor after she was taken off the air for reciting Snoop Dogg lyrics during a live broadcast, and blasted those not willing to allow people to own up to mistakes.
Barbie Bassett never returned to her anchor spot on NBC affiliate WLBT after reciting the phrase “Fo shizzle, my nizzle,” during a March 8 broadcast while talking about the rapper’s line of wine.
According to The New York Post, Bassett even tweeted the phrase before in 2011, which has since been deleted.
The term “nizzle” is often used as slang for the n-word.
On the Monday edition of The View, Goldberg discussed the issue with fellow co-hosts Sunny Hostin, Ana Navarro, Sara Haines, and Alyssa Farah Griffin.
“I don’t know why she’s been fired, but I do know that people have to understand that sometimes stuff comes out of folks’ mouths and you might wanna start with, ‘Hey, maybe that wasn’t the smartest thing to say,’ as opposed to ‘You’re out,'” Goldberg said.
“That’s just me — having been in this situation before,” she added, referencing the numerous times she has had to apologize for her own controversies.
Earlier this month, Goldberg apologized after using the term “gypped” in reference to former President Donald Trump and his supporters feeling as if they had been wronged in the 2020 election.
The term is from the word “gypsy, which is considered a slur against Romani people.
Goldberg also faced backlash in December after saying the Holocaust “wasn’t originally” about race.
During the conversation on Monday, Sara Haines along with Goldberg agreed that education was the best route for dealing with mishaps as opposed to firing the person.
“When she leaves, though, you know, when this stuff happens, it’s not like people come back on the air and say, ‘Let us clarify,'” Haines explained.
“No, they never let you do that,” Goldberg said, staring daggers into the camera for several seconds, perhaps making a point to her own bosses.
“So my point is that it’d be better for her to come on and say, ‘Hey, I just wanted to clarify –‘” Haines added.
Farah Griffin jumped into the conversation by adding that she grew up listening to similar music but through the years has come to understand, “a lot of those words are not for me to use. And a lot of those lyrics are not for me to quote.”
Goldberg pushed back, saying, “You know what, now that we’re talking about this… Y’all need to make a book of stuff that no one can say. There has to be a book of stuff nobody can ever say — ever, ever, ever.”
“Include everything. Because I tell you the things that change, you can say this, but you can’t say that. But next week you might not be able to say this. It’s hard to keep up. It’s hard to keep up. And if you are a person of a certain age, there’s stuff we do and we say, you know what I’m saying?” Goldberg said.
She clarified that just because people are on television, “doesn’t mean we know everything.”
“We don’t know everything you’re not supposed to do. And if there’s something someone says, if you’re not gonna give them the opportunity to explain why they said it, at least give them the grace of saying, ‘You know what, I’ve just been informed that I should not have done that,'” she explained.
“As opposed to ‘You’re out’ because you saying ‘You’re out’ means you don’t want to hear what people have to say. Or the mistakes that they might have made that could help somebody else not make that mistake,” Goldberg concluded.
Watch above via The View.
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