Apparently, you can be a multi-millionaire who brags about taking their family vacations to Martha's Vineyard and Sag Harbor, has a husband who is a renowned orthopedic surgeon in New York City, and be a co-host of the top-rated daytime talk show and still be “oppressed.” That’s what the racist co-host of The View, Sunny Hostin wanted viewers to believe during a conversation about the woke efforts to censor influential literature, while also pushing the debunked narrative that black history was being erased.
At issue were the recent rewrites of the works of Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming. Hostin was the odd one out on the set in that she was adamantly in favor of censoring literature, seemingly suggesting she was a good arbitrator for that endeavor.
“I'm going to disagree,” she announced in opposition to the four other co-hosts (Whoopi Goldberg, Sara Haines, Ana Navarro, and Alyssa Farah Griffin). Hostin was all for censoring the James Bond novels despite asserting she’s a “huge” fan:
When you think about a book like James Bond – and I'm a huge James Bond fan – in his Live and Let Die book – in that novel, he visits Harlem and he uses the N-word to describe almost every black person he sees there. And in my view, the sensitivity of the edits now say “black man,” “black woman,” “black person.” I appreciate that.
Hostin, who has previously demanded reparations, suggested that viewers needed to take her word take her word for it because she’s an oppressed person. “You don't have to call me the N-word for me to understand my oppression. And I think when someone who is oppressed tells you that, I think that you should listen,” she lectured.
In sharp contrast, Goldberg was staunchly against censoring the N-word and even warned against it. “That was part of how we identified ourselves...The bottom line is: if we say it has to be removed from all the literature, that includes our literature,” she informed the cast.
“Y'all got to stop this. Just put a disclaimer...Kids should have the right to read how people thought so that they know how to make the change,” she said about the censorship in general.
Faux Republican Navarro was also against the censorship, not just because removing gendered language about the Oompa Loompas was ridiculous but also because it gave the “folks on the right” ammunition to be “anti-woke”:
What else happens is I think overreaching and overcompensating and overdoing it because to me when you're removing all gender-specific words from the Oompa Loompas – I mean, people, the Oompa Loompas are fictional! They're made-believe. But you know, when you’re doing that kind of thing it lends itself for folks on the right to say, “Oh, this is what woke is all about. You’ve got to be anti-woke. Let’s pass an anti-woke act.”
Navarro then pushed the debunked conspiracy theory that black history was being eliminated from school curriculums. “I'm not concerned about you editing out words from a book. I think that's stupid. I am concerned about you editing out black history studies AP courses in Florida,” she shouted.
That falsehood was echoed later by Hostin and Goldberg when they suggested schools were not teaching the historical context of different works of literature.
FARAH GRIFFIN: Like, I grew up reading Mark Twain in the California public school system. We had a whole discussion; yes, we learned the literature, but we learned why the N-word was used and the racist history associated with it. And that stuck with me more than the story did. So, I think contextualizing it and teaching it –
HOSTIN: But they're not doing that anymore.
GOLDBERG: Well, that’s why we’re bitching about it. Because they’re not doing that anymore.
HOSTIN: They’re not doing that.
Teachers, are you offended by the lies of Whoopi and the oppressed Hostin?
This ridiculousness from Sunny Hostin was made possible because of lucrative sponsorships from AARP and Purina. Their contact information is linked.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
ABC’s The View
February 27, 2023
11:16:24 a.m. Eastern(…)
ANA NAVARRO: What else happens is I think overreaching and overcompensating and overdoing it because to me when you're removing all gender-specific words from the Oompa Loompas – I mean, people, the Oompa Loompas are fictional! They're made-believe. But you know, when you’re doing that kind of thing it lends itself for folks on the right to say, “Oh, this is what woke is all about. You’ve got to be anti-woke. Let’s pass an anti-woke act.”
Let me tell you what I’m concerned about. I'm not concerned about you editing out words from a book. I think that's stupid. I am concerned about you editing out black history studies AP courses in Florida.
[Applause]
And I – you know – I think it should make us feel uncomfortable. We went to see Piano Lesson, the play by August Wilson. The N-word is used there like every other sentence. And it should make us feel uncomfortable. But it is what it is – it was what it was and we cannot erase history.
[Crosstalk]
SUNNY HOSTIN: I'm going to disagree. I think that -- I mean, I'm in the particular place where I have a child in high school. And he's reading things like Toni Morrison and she’s reading things like James Baldwin and she’s reading about the struggles.
And she's also knowledgeable about the erasure of African American history today and how white families don't want their children to learn certain things because they will feel like they are the oppressors. And so, while all this sounds wonderful, what isn't wonderful is that if these children don't learn certain things that are uncomfortable they will, you know -- past can become prologue.
That being said, when you think about a book like James Bond – and I'm a huge James Bond fan – in his Live and Let Die book – in that novel, he visits Harlem and he uses the N-word to describe almost every black person he sees there. And in my view, the sensitivity of the edits now say “black man,” “black woman,” “black person.” I appreciate that.
You don't have to call me the N-word for me to understand my oppression. And I think when someone who is oppressed tells you that, I think that you should listen.
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: I think that's a valid point.
Just the thought I had is you don't want to whitewash the history so much that kids these days don't even know it was there. Like, I grew up reading Mark Twain in the California public school system. We had a whole discussion; yes, we learned the literature, but we learned why the N-word was used and the racist history associated with it. And that stuck with me more than the story did. So, I think contextualizing it and teaching it –
HOSTIN: But they're not doing that anymore.
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Well, that’s why we’re bitching about it. Because they’re not doing that anymore.
HOSTIN: They’re not doing that.
(…)
