‘I stand corrected,’ said Whoopi Goldberg, the day after she was advised that the Holocaust was indeed a racist slaughter.

Whoops… But apology notwithstanding, what level of ignorance could explain how a middle-aged person in 21st century America does not know that Jews are a race?

From her convoluted attempt at explaining the Holocaust to her fellow panellists on The View, it seems Whoopi has been confusing race with skin colour all her life. She thought that Jews were white and therefore not subject to anti-racist sentiment.

She put herself in the frame as an authority on the subject because she is black.

That a woman called Caryn Johnson who adopted a Jewish family name is so ignorant of Jewish facts is the new definition of irony.

The uproar continues… and continues.

After she was suspended from the show for two weeks in a fit of hesitation, she received a barrage of support and criticism, including perhaps notably, a message from conservative Fox News host Sean Hannity, that she must not resign. That opinion is part of the overall argument against cancel culture.

The resignation question tumbled into the messy tub of cancel culture, where such a faux pas by any conservative host or commentator would bring down the heavens on them.

Perhaps in the interests of public awareness, the network should invite a relevant and credible spokesperson on The View to sit opposite Whoopi and articulate the difference between skin colour variation and racism.

For a nasty label so readily employed against ideological opponents, it is very little understood.