Whoopi Goldberg Should Be Held Accountable For Comparing Black Americans To People In Iran

On Tuesday, Whoopi Goldberg told the audience of "The View" that black people in America have it as bad as people living in the terrorist state of Iran.

Alyssa Farah Griffin pushed back some, but Goldberg maintained her stance.

"I think it's very different to live in the United States in 2025 than it is to live in Iran," Griffin interjected. "Not if you're black," Goldberg responded.

"The View" is hardly the epitome of honest, intellectual discourse. The co-hosts also have minimal knowledge of complex matters, like international affairs in the Middle East. That said, the cartoonish nature of the show should not exempt the co-hosts from company standards.

ABC continues to list "The View" under the ABC News umbrella. The company sells the show to sponsors and viewers as a news show with opinion. Therefore, there ought to be repercussions for remarks as abhorrent as Goldberg's were this week.

By comparing life in America for black people to religions and ethnic minorities in Iran, Goldberg downplayed the atrocities to which the latter groups are subjected.

Dr. Sheila Nazarian is a plastic surgeon in Los Angeles near the Beverly Hills area. As a child, just 6 years old, she was smuggled out of Iran during the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Nazarian spoke to Fox News Digital about Goldberg's comments. 

"While racism is a serious and ongoing challenge in the U.S., comparing this to life under a totalitarian theocracy like Iran is not only inaccurate – it’s offensive to those who suffer daily under that regime," Nazarian said.

"In Iran, the government controls nearly every aspect of life. People can be imprisoned, tortured, raped or even executed for peaceful protests, for criticizing the regime, or simply expressing their opinions online."

Life is even worse for women in Iran.

In 2022, Iran’s morality police were accused of murdering Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman, for not wearing a hijab in public.

"It’s astonishing that Whoopi Goldberg would even suggest that life for black Americans is somehow equivalent to living under the rule of the Ayatollah in Iran," Iranian-American journalist Lisa Daftari added in a statement to Fox News Digital.

"The very fact that she, as a woman — and a woman of color — has a platform where she can speak freely, express dissenting views, and appear uncovered on national television is proof of the immense freedoms she enjoys."

Goldberg is also a staunch advocate of LGBTQ rights. At least she claims to be on the show. In Iran, homosexuality is punishable by death. 

In America, black women have the opportunity to make millions of dollars. Per reports, ABC News pays Goldberg, a black woman, $8 million a year.

NEW YORK - Whoopi Goldberg speaks onstage during the 2025 Tribeca Festival at SVA Theater on June 13, 2025. (Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival)

For background, OutKick rarely calls for the punishment of people in media. Free speech is ingrained in the ethos of our industry. We'd rather even the worst of opinions be heard than silenced. 

However, Goldberg didn't just give an opinion. She lied. There is no plausible argument that black Americans face similar conditions to people in Iran. That's not a matter of opinion but fact.

And for what? To score political points? To create even more racial unrest and hatred in society?

Goldberg's remarks were inexcusable. And ABC News cannot in good faith defend her – especially after firing Terry Moran earlier this month.

ABC News said Moran's distasteful post about Trump advisor Stephen Miller failed to meet company standards. Well, those same standards apply to Goldberg, whose comments were more appalling.

On Thursday, OutKick asked ABC News about Goldberg's comments in comparison to firing Moran. The network did not respond.

And we don't expect it to. ABC News has lost complete control of "The View." The ladies now run the asylum.

In May, The Daily Beast reported that Disney CEO Bob Iger and ABC News President Almin Karamehmedovic asked "The View" co-hosts to tone down their anti-Trump rhetoric. According to the report, the women scoffed at the request and called it "silly."

If Iger can't take charge of the show, seemingly no one inside Disney or ABC News can. They are all too cowardly. The women on set know that, especially Goldberg and Sunny Hostin.

See, Goldberg complains about the treatment of black women in America. Yet it is exactly her status as a black woman in America that grants her the license to spew vile, misinformed rhetoric free of accountability.

Her bosses understand the risk in condemning a black woman's comments about race, even comments as buffoonish as Goldberg's were about Iran.

Black women like Whoopi Goldberg are not oppressed. They are privileged.