Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me

by Whoopi Goldberg

In a way, I’m relieved that both Clyde and my ma passed away before number forty-five got to have his one term in office. I know my mom would be so discouraged at how his attitude turned people against each other, how women’s rights got reversed, and how much worse it started looking for black folks and other people of color in this country. When I was a little kid in the projects, I would see old ladies who had numbers stamped on their arms. I didn’t know what it was then but came to understand it later in life. When I got older and had conversations with these elderly Jewish women who had survived the atrocities of the Holocaust, they said to me, “Keep your eyes very peeled. Because it’s never happened here in the US, but it doesn’t mean that it can’t. When you hear things that don’t sound good being brought up around you, you need to listen. And when these things start happening and you start losing your rights as an American, then you have to really prick up your ears.” One of the ladies told me, “You don’t want to be caught like we were. We didn’t get out in time. We didn’t get out fast enough.” Since 2016, that’s been on my mind. I’m listening. I’m watching. And I’ve got things prepared should anything get worse. But it would make my mom and brother enraged and sad that America has taken such a big step backward.

Very important statement from Whoopie Goldberg