“The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg slammed the re-editing of classic books on Monday and suggested putting disclaimers on the literature instead, adding, “this is how kids learn.”
“Look, y’all got to stop this. Just put a disclaimer that says, listen, this put was written at this time or put out the original and what y’all have done. Because kids should have the right to read how people thought so that they know how to make the change,” Goldberg said.
Puffin recently altered books by Roald Dahl, who famously wrote “Matilda,” “James and the Giant Peach,” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” to remove language they deemed offensive.
“You know, they tried to do this with Mark Twain as well because they were so concerned the n-word was in the book. Well that’s how they did it. That’s how it was. We don’t want people doing it today and you don’t see it as much. That’s how people learn,” Goldberg continued.
“The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg slams re-editing books on Monday, Feb. 27, 2023. (Screenshot/ABC/TheView)
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Co-host Sara Haines agreed and said “art more than anything” needs to be left alone when it comes to “stories being told.”
“This will show people when they feel really uncomfortable reading a certain world,” she said. “That impact can be greater than anything else. Leave it alone.”
Co-host Ana Navarro said they were “overdoing it” by removing gender-specific words from the Oompa Loompa characters in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”
“I mean the Oompa Loompas are fiction, they’re make believe,” she said, adding that it “lends itself” to people on the right who say “this is what wokeism is all about.”
Roald Dahl, the author of several popular works, including Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. (Tony Evans, E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service)
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Navarro also reiterated her concern that states were “editing out Black history studies from AP courses.”
“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, and it was what it was and we should not erase history,” she added.
Co-host Sunny Hostin disagreed with her co-hosts and referenced the recent edits made to the James Bond book series.
LONDON – APRIL 16: A lady looks at a collection of Ian Fleming James Bond 007 books at the ‘For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming & James Bond Press View’ at the Imperial War Museum on April 16, 2008 in London, England. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images) (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)
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“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 uses the n-word to describe almost every that 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, you should listen,” she said.