Once again, Whoopi Goldberg is once again at the center of the controversy. This time for using a derogatory term towards people of Roma ethnicity, which has earned him the label of “racist” for a certain sector of the television audience in the United States.
The famous actress made these controversial statements on the show, The View, on ABC. It all happened when the cast of presenters and collaborators of the well-known television space discussed how Donald Trump had lost the elections. At one point, the interpreter claimed that the former president was “ripped off”, but for this she used the word “gypped” (gypsy), a derogatory term towards gypsies.
“People who still believe that he was, you know, gypped in some way, will still believe that he cared enough…for his wife to pay that money from her personal things. I don’t understand. If that was the case, then why all the subterfuge? Why is Michael Cohen paying for it? These were the statements that Whoopi Goldberg made a few days ago and that have caused such a stir.
Certainly, although in Spanish the word “swindled” or “deceived” does not have any type of negative connotation towards any ethnic group or group, in English the term “gypped” is sometimes used to define the act of deceiving, swindling or cheating.
And it is that “gypped”, in English, would come to say something like “gypsy” if we translate it into Spanish, a connotation qualified as derogatory slang for people of Romani heritage and, therefore, it is considered an insult towards them.
So much so that Whoopi Goldberg has had to record a video apologizing for it. Social networks were filled with comments from viewers calling her racist. “When you are a certain age, you use words that you learned as a child or that you remember saying,” she tries to justify herself.
“And that’s what I did today, and I shouldn’t have done it. She should have thought a little more before saying it, but I didn’t. I should have said ‘cheated’ (cheated, in the original), and I used another word, and I’m very, very sorry,” the presenter apologized.
