I’ve written several times here over the years about the dangers of putting too much stock in celebrities trying to make bold historical statements or anything that is “made-for-television history” in general. This point was illustrated all-too vividly this past week when on the liberal-leaning TV show “The View” that she hosts Whoopi Goldberg asserted and then re-asserted her belief that the Holocaust was not racially motivated.

“The Holocaust isn’t about race. No, it’s not about race,” she said. Another host on the show, Joy Behar, responded that the Nazis described Jews as a different race. “But it’s not about race,” Goldberg said again. “It’s not. It’s about man’s inhumanity to other man.”

“This was white people doing it to white people, so y’all go fight amongst yourselves,” Goldberg added.

Of course, this was met with immediate howls from the Jewish community and historians in general who decried Goldberg’s blatant historical inaccuracy. It is an established historical fact that German Nazis viewed themselves as a “master race” and Jews as an “inferior” race that deserved nothing more than elimination.

To her credit, soon after Goldberg acknowledged as much and issued an apology, stating “I stand corrected.”

This episode illuminates several points that need to be considered. Firstly, it is clear that in her life Goldberg has not learned the entirety of the Holocaust story. On the outside looking in, and to uneducated eyes, it would be easy to assume that because everyone involved in the tragedy had the same skin color it wasn’t in fact a racially motivated act.

However, as with many other parts of history, the truth of what happened is often found in the nuances of the entirety. How many times over history have groups with the same skin color butchered each other over issues like religion or land disputes?

The answer: probably too many to count.

Reading the words of the people at the root of the Holocaust proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that they did in fact look at the Jewish population in Europe as a separate race, regardless of skin color.

I know little to nothing about Whoopi Goldberg, and I would rather have eyeteeth cut out than have to watch “The View” or any “let me show you how smart I am” show of its ilk. But I do know that giving people a worldwide audience with a camera and microphone attached is a dangerous thing, because too many people watching what ensues will accept whatever is said as fact.

Why? Because if they are TV, then they have to know what they are talking about, right? Let that be a strong lesson for all of us.

Another thing that stands out here is how clear it is that, again, what we may think we know about a particular topic is more than likely far from all there is to know about it. Before any of us makes a bold statement about anything regarding history — including topics we may feel fairly learned about — it is a very wise move to take a little while to do our best to confirm the accuracy of our stance, at least to the best of our ability to do so.

It has been interesting to see some of the reactions to Goldberg’s faux pas. To my surprise, the vast majority of the voices speaking out about it — including those coming from many conservatives — have been very accepting of Goldberg’s apology. When you make a mistake, about all you can do is apologize and learn from the mistake.

As I’ve said before, you can’t blame people for not knowing things they haven’t been taught, and clearly at some point along the line Goldberg must have missed at least a couple of important elements regarding the Holocaust.

But, with all that said, don’t forget that Disney-owned ABC (the network “The View” airs on) immediately fired conservative-leaning Roseanne Barr back in 2018 because of a racist-tinged tweet that was deleted and apologized for. Some are publicly calling out the perceived double standard being displayed, and perhaps rightfully so.

Regardless, the main this all of this brings clearly out into the light is that we all have so much to learn about each other, and that we simply must respect the history that has brought each of us to the present day. Each of us represents an amazing, unique thread of history that has culminated with us as individuals, and it is the combined individual threads that make the incredible tapestry that is our cumulative story.

Moreover, we need to be brave enough to accept and learn even the more difficult parts of history, because those parts are integral parts of the stories of many human beings walking around this poor planet today. They, and the history they represent as living products of it, matter just as much as anyone else’s, and deserves to be respect as such.

Because at the end of the day, refusing to learn that history — or choosing to eliminate it — simply adds to the epidemic of ignorance we currently face as a society.

As the Indian leader Jawaharial Nehru once so succinctly and brilliantly said: “You can’t change the course of history by turning the faces of portraits to the wall.”

And, you can’t truly learn history until you take your own blinders off.