Politics

Whoopi Slaps Kanye Back:’Laws Said That We Were Less Than Human’

Virginia Kruta Associate Editor
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Whoopi Goldberg kicked off ABC’s “The View” on Wednesday by attacking Kanye West’s assessment, delivered during an explosive TMZ Live interview, that 400 years of slavery was “a choice.” “I grew up in it. I wasn’t born into Civil Rights.”

West received a fair amount of backlash after the interview, and quickly clarified on Twitter that he was referring to “mental enslavement,” not the brutal and physical act of being captured and sold into bondage — but Goldberg was not sure that it really cleared anything up.

That’s when Goldberg let loose, but her response may have at least in part proved West’s point — that the mental restraints could often be as powerful or more so than the physical ones.

“Kanye, look, there were laws that were put in place that said that we were less than human. And so when you have laws that say your are less than human, they don’t even let you in the room, they don’t let you in the door. You are meant to live in a different way, like an animal, often times.”

Over time, Goldberg noted, the laws have changed. And while that has helped, she said there was still work to be done. And she argued that comments like West’s didn’t help to move the conversation forward. “You change the laws, you change the mentality, but you can’t pretend like people are just saying that ‘I’m staying here, this feels really comfortable to me’… No!”