"You don't have to like it, but we don't go after people because we don't like who they voted for. We don't go after them that way."

"We can talk about issues and stuff, but we don't print out lists.... Think about it. Read about it. Remember what the blacklist actually meant to people and don't encourage anyone — anyone — to do it."

Whoopi Goldberg gets intense, pushing back Debra Messing (who talked about making a list of Hollywood people who attend a Trump fundraiser).

This clip from "The View" begins with a milder statement from Joy Behar who uses the joke that it should be called a "white list" not a "blacklist," but Goldberg — who, unlike Behar, is black — ignores the joke and uses the traditional term "blacklist":



Goldberg's intensity was excellent. I might fault her for 2 things, but the overall impression is so good, I almost don't want to say it. But I will:

1. Goldberg instructs Messing, et al., not to make a list "because the next list that comes out, your name will be on and then people will be coming after you," as if the morality in question is nothing but self-interest, but it's wrong even if you can feel certain that you'll never be on the receiving end.

2. Goldberg says that in the old Hollywood blacklist days "a lot of really good people were accused of stuff" and "nobody cared whether it was true or not." The "stuff" was left-wing politics, and these days it's the left-wingers who are trying to cancel the people they don't agree with. It's not so much that people back then didn't care about what was true or not, but more that those who made the blacklist had too much certainty and rectitude about their own political beliefs and — perversely — thought it was a good idea to frighten, destroy, and silence those who wanted to say something else. (I say perversely, because if you're so sure your ideas are right, you shouldn't be afraid to have them challenged and talked about by people who think something else and also because freedom of speech was part of the traditional values system they purported to defend.)

What was the premise of Behar's "white list" joke — that Trump supporters are white or that Trump supporters are white supremacists? I don't know, but I'm glad Goldberg stomped on it, because "white list" already has a meaning — a useful meaning. It's a list of what is good. Instead of naming the people or businesses you want to exclude, you name the ones you've checked out and approve of and want to reward with your business.

"Blacklist" is a strong word with a precise meaning: "A list of the names of people, groups, etc., who have incurred suspicion, censure, or displeasure, and are typically therefore subject to a ban or other punishment." That's the OED, which has examples going back to the 17th century. "White list," as a play on "blacklist" has been around since at least 1842. From Christian Remembrancer:

In the black list of Ludovicus Vives were ‘Amadis de Gaul’, ‘Torante the White’, ‘Lancelot de Lac’, ‘Paris et Vienne’..cards, dice, and gay dresses. In the white list were Cyprian, Jerome, Augustine, and Ambrose, Plato, Cicero, Seneca's maxims and tragedies..and portions of Horace.