Whoopi Goldberg blasted the “sensitivity” edits to classic novels by Ian Fleming and Roald Dahl and most of the hosts of The View agreed with her stance — with the exception of Sunny Hostin.
Goldberg has an extensive acting and comedy career and even snagged an Academy Award for 1990’s Ghost. She was particularly perturbed on Monday with reports that James Bond novels were being reedited to remove content deemed racist and offensive.
Those edits followed reports Dahl’s children’s books were also going through rewrites to remove offensive content. The publisher behind these edits announced the original versions would be preserved and published following a public outcry.
“Y’all gotta stop this, okay? Just put a disclaimer on it that says, ‘listen, this book 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,” she said.
Most of Goldberg’s co-hosts agreed with her stance that art should be left alone, including Ana Navarro who recalled seeing a play with her husband that included a frequent use of a certain racist word.
“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,” she said.
Sunny Hostin stood up for the edits and pushed back, specifically those applied to Fleming’s James Bond series.
“When you think about a book like a 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 person that he sees there,” she said.
Hostin made it clear she doesn’t view the politically correct lens being applied to literature as harshly as Goldberg.
“You don’t have to call me the n-word for me to understand my oppression,” she said.
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