Whoopi's Wealth and You: A Tale of Two Worlds

Whoopi Goldberg made what can only be construed as a remarkable comment on The View recently, that she works for a living and empathizes with the financial struggles Americans have faced due to inflation over the past 3 1/2 years under Biden.

While it's true she is a working individual, and her job is indeed a paid position, it's rather misleading to imply that she experiences financial hardship in the same way as the average American.

Understandably, she's facing significant backlash for her comments. This Thanksgiving many will be asking, "Are you serious?" around dinner tables across the country. She's honestly comparing herself to everyday Americans with a median income of $80,020 a year?

Whoopi Goldberg earns an annual salary of $8 million for her appearances on The View alone. On top of that, she likely receives substantial income from her extensive work in TV shows, movies, and comedy albums over the years. Her estimated net worth is approximately $60 million.

She's hardly on her way to rags and a shed in the woods hunting deer for food.

Having a political stance is one thing, and understanding the dynamics and impacts of inflation is another. You don't need to be poor to grasp how inflation affects one's financial quality of life. However, to sit there with a straight face and claim to share the same struggles as your audience is quite insulting.

Her comment serves as yet another reminder of how disconnected celebrities can be from reality. It's important to remember this when they comment on issues that affect the rest of us. They don't live in our world, see things through the same lens, or experience life as we do.

It's not to say they are not people, of course. But someone like Whoopi Goldberg isn't facing the tough choices at the grocery store that many Americans do. She's merely complaining about the increased costs, not making the same sacrifices as a working mom with a family of four to feed on a limited budget.

How can she sit there earning 100 times what her audience does and be taken seriously trying to argue that she's just like you? In the most basic of ways, it simply lacks credibility.

Granted, it's Whoopi Goldberg, who is known for making controversial remarks rather frequently. However, this does not entitle her to a free pass. The significant disparity between the lives of celebrities and average Americans is evident—do they not understand this? Have they become so far removed from their past lives that they have forgotten what it's like for everyone else?

It's perfectly fine to empathize with the financial hardships of others and to voice concerns. However, comparing their own experiences to those of average Americans only highlights that they lack the same perspective to draw upon.

Personally, I think Whoopi Goldberg should apologize to her audience. She once faced financial hardships and was a regular person. It would be more sincere for her to reflect on those experiences and share that story honestly. It would be much more genuine for her to acknowledge that these aren't her struggles today but that she remembers and understands what it's like to make tough decisions at the grocery store. Instead of claiming she's just like us, she should reflect on how fortunate she is to be in a different place.

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© 2024 Jim Bauer 

Media Reporting of LGBTQ+ Movement is Wrong

The manner in which the conservative backlash toward transgender and identity and the whole LGBTQ+ movement is being portrayed in the media is just more propaganda and false reporting. I would say the media is missing the point, but that's not the case at all.

The media knows exactly what they are doing.

And that's the same thing they always do. They are installing a narrative. The story is not the reaction by conservatives to handing Dylan Mulvaney a can of Bud Light beer with his picture on it. The story is not the reaction to Pride offerings in Target stores. 

The story is the force feeding of woke and cancel culture, which is a minority viewpoint, onto the majority. The story is forcing this ideology onto children. The story is forcing the majority of people to be forced to conform to a fringe societal view.

The fact is that there is only one thing that the LGBTQ+ community wants, and that's for everyone else to simply sit down and shut up and accept their viewpoint, or else.

Conservatives have simply had enough. And I think even to suggest that it is only a conservative movement is also false. But that's part of the narrative. That's what the media wants us all to believe, that in order to have a viewpoint that is different from the LGBTQ+ community and movement, one must be a conservative.

I think there are actually many liberals and independents also tired of it. Based on the impact and the numbers, I think only the latter must be true.

The fact is that the proper way to report any stories about any backlash toward transgender and identity and LGBTQ+ issues is this way. "A large portion of the American people are pushing back on the forced push of LGBTQ+ ideology."

Because that's what is really happening.

Granted, it may be that it is more likely that one with a conservative viewpoint will have a stronger opinion on the issue. However, it is not the whole story and certainly it is not a prerequisite to be a conservative for standing against these things.

Part of the issue is that what people are being asked (and I use the word "asked" very lightly here) to do is accept, without question, whatever it is that the left and woke and cancel culture wants and simply fall in line. People are being forced to be confrontational just because. 

If you think that taking down a statue of Robert E. Lee is wrong, you must be a racist. If you think that boys should only use boy's bathrooms, you must be a homophobe. If you think it is okay to enjoy a pour of Aunt Jemimah syrup on your pancakes, you must be in support of white supremacist movements. If you think that transgenderism should not be present in schools, you must be insensitive to LGBTQ+ issues.

I could go on, but I think anyone is aware what these issues are that are involved with woke and cancel culture.

What's being missed in the discussion, but again not by the media because they know exactly what they are doing as I mentioned earlier, is that other people simply have a difference of opinion and it so happens to be that MOST people disagree with woke and cancel culture.

Sure, one can make an argument that sets this movement alongside the Civil Rights Movement. At that time, it could have been argued that most people were of the viewpoint that blacks were inferior people and not entitled to the same rights as everyone else.

At that time, that majority viewpoint was wrong.

But hold up a minute. Was that viewpoint actually the majority viewpoint? I think it wasn't. I think most people were actually on the side of the black community. Had that not been the case, I don't think the Civil Rights Movement would have been effective at all. It never would have worked.

And let's face it, there's one other thing about the Civil Rights Movement that is important to keep in mind.

The movement made sense!

But there is also another element here which I think is important to understand. That is that I have serious doubts that most genuine people within the LGBTQ+ community agree with most of this stuff. I think the genuine gays and lesbians and trans people simply want to be live their lives quietly just like everyone else on the other side.

So, the movement, to my mind, is entirely on the fringe. It is an agenda not to try to bring people together. It is a movement to portray a certain, defined group of people a certain way for the purpose of winning political favor. It is a movement designed to further pit people against each other and create division.

It's why anyone who speaks out against Bud Light or against gender neutral Potato Heads is automatically assigned as a conservative.

Frankly, I think the real woke culture is the vast majority of Americans, and I think that is an important distinction to make. It is not just conservatives waking up to the reality that all of this "woke" stuff is bad. It's the vast majority of the AMERICAN PEOPLE who believe this. And they are fighting back. 

They are fighting back for history to be preserved. They are fighting back to save the children. They are fighting back to stop the division. They are fighting back to simply say, "Let me enjoy my breakfast. Let me enjoy browsing through the aisles of Target. Let me enjoy my M&M's and enjoy a cold beer. Let me enjoy a sitcom or a movie. Let me enjoy a football game. And let me enjoy it all without all sorts of politics and innuendo injected into it."

That's the story the media is failing to report. And again, it's not that they don't know what the story is. They simply aren't interested in reporting it. 

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Creating the Illusion of Bigotry is About Words

I want to talk about words, and how certain words are strategically used to create division, and the illusion of bigotry. I use the word bigotry because it has morphed into that from before being mainly just about racism. I say that even though the word "racism" these days carries a very different meaning now than it did not so long ago depending on who you ask to define what it is.

Take the phrase, "Your kind of people." It's a rather benign statement that does not by itself mean anything specific. It requires context in order for the phrase to have meaning or a definition.

The phrase can be used in its entirety, or it can be abbreviated. "Your kind." It means exactly the same thing depending on the context. It also means different things depending on the nature of the conversation in which it is being used.

Many people often say, "I know your kind." Adding the words, "of people," may be a bit redundant because we are all people, of course. But it doesn't in any way change the meaning of the entirety of the phrase.

Unless the one hearing the words wants it to.

Ultimately a "kind of people" can be anything. There are good people, bad people, devious people, unscrupulous people, charitable people, mischievous people. In other words, it can be said that in this world there are "all kinds of people." Another common phrase that is used in the English language.

Depending on who you direct the words to, and often times regardless of the context, "Your kind of people" suddenly becomes a racist statement even if, in the context of how it is stated, it has no racial component to it whatsoever.

In other words, to the ear of someone who wants to create division, the ears will process the word or phrase in a way that creates the illusion of bigotry.

It's not just a white or black issue, though. Thus, choosing the word bigotry over racism. Because the same thing is happening with the LGBTQ community and the "fight for their rights" argument permeating the political landscape today. Words are being turned into something else in order to create the bigotry to further the cause and perpetuate the idea that bigotry exists on a level that perhaps it really doesn't. 

It's designed to widen the divide and justify a reason for the argument. It's a strong-armed attempt to change the conversation.

That's really what the pronoun thing is about when you get down to it. It's a challenge. It's a call to create an argument. It is a cause to force someone into a challenge for which now they must defend themselves and for which the person who believes they are being bigoted against can now point fingers at and assign blame.

"Could I speak to her," now becomes a bigoted statement if it is directed at someone who wants to be called they. By itself nothing at all is implied by the term "her" unless the word means something else to the person it is directed at.

The word, "her," now becomes a challenge. The person who wants to be called "they" now gets to put the other person on the spot to see if they will now assume using the new desired pronoun or will pose an argument against it. And if the person does not comply with the challenge, they are now confirmed to be a bigot.

Communication is the greatest form of bringing people together. But when you redefine words and make the language used confusing, that's what creates the divide. Because when people no longer know how to communicate, some people avoid the communication altogether.

"What do you mean by your kind of people?" asks boldly the black man if it is said to him by a white person. The challenge has begun, and a benign statement now has been redefined and the entire context and nature of the conversation changes from one that had no racial connotation, to one that now does.

You've been put on the spot to now defend yourself but have also been immediately accused. Beyond that, your defense will be harder since the person accusing has, presumably, already made up their mind.

In other words, one side is saying, "You can't use those words." Or they are saying, "You have to carefully choose your words around me." A person who is not racist now has to communicate in a way that proves he is not racist at every word.

When a group of people assumes they are bigoted against, it is on the other side to constantly prove they are not a bigot. They are guilty until deemed innocent. And if you slip? Now the challenge is on—but the accusation remains, often times despite the defense.

Take the word cis as another example. Beyond being so far just a made-up word transgender people use to describe non transgendered people, if you say you are not "cis," but just a man, suddenly the affirmation of the word "man" and the denial of the word "cis" implies you are a bigot. 

And that's the challenge. That's what the so-called bigoted person is now forced to do. Either to accept the definition they have chosen for you and change your verbiage or be accused of being a bigot if you don't.

The English language, or any language for that matter, is supposed to be simple enough that words mean something, but all words must mean the same thing to everyone or else the ability to communicate breaks down.

But of course, context and body language and inflection also play large roles in how we communicate with each other, and even changes the nature of words used. Calling someone stupid can be playful, joking, or serious.

It's all in how you say it and in what context you call someone stupid which determines if the word is being used to accuse or to simply suggest or is nothing more than a joke.

"You're an idiot!" with a furled brow, raised voice and wave away means a very different thing than, "You're an idiot," with a smile and giggle and wave away. The context should immediately assign to the person the word is being directed at what is meant by the word "idiot." And often times it is clearly understood.

Unless they happen to be certain words deemed to have specific other meanings that have been reassigned to the words—again, such as to create the illusion of bigotry or racism. To create the divide and further the gap. To put otherwise normal, benign people on constant alert, and to stand at the ready any group of people who want to perpetuate the illusion of bigotry to challenge it and have an opportunity to affirm it.

When one is predisposed to assume something exists, in any encounter, regardless of the nature of it, that person will deeply look for any reason to find the thing they are predisposed to believe exists. And anything can be turned into an opportunity to say, "See, right there. There it is."

The problem is that the more one or another group tries to redefine language, the more divided as a people we become. The more unable to communicate effectively we become. The less inclined we become to have an open and honest conversation about anything. Especially in situations where any number of words may be up for challenge as to what they really mean depending on who says them and who hears them.

The answer is that any of these "redefined" words or phrases can be bigoted. But they need to be understood on a different level, and the context should be sought just as strongly as the bigotry is being sought to be found. 

Because here's the deal. If you are looking for bigotry, and are predisposed to believing it is present everywhere, you will find it. No matter where it comes from. No matter the context. No matter the meaning. You will find it.

Everyone says we want to eliminate racism and we want to eliminate bigotry. And I think on all sides, deep down, that's what most people really want to do. At the same time, in order to do that, if we really want to accomplish it, we need to stop finding ways to breathe new life into it. We need to stop finding new ways to rekindle flames when the fire is dying down.

Rather than look for ways to divide each other, we need to find ways to come together. And if we can be creative about how we change the meaning of words to perpetuate the illusion of bigotry, I think we can be equally creative about finding ways to remove the illusion and just go back to words meaning what they actually mean.

I think the world would be a much better place if we did that.