Whoopi Goldberg: 'I Was Raised to Think That Anything Was Possible in America'

Editor’s Note: This is part three of Liz Smith’s exclusive interview with Whoopi Goldberg. Click here to read part one. Click here to read part two.

LIZ: Well, Whoopi, I think anybody who cared to read your résumé, track your career, your thousands of awards … in some way you’ve won more awards than anybody. And I’m thinking of the Mark Twain Award especially — that was just the epitome! And people would say that as a result of this you are truly living the American dream and really feeling a part of it. Is there any difference for you in what happened in the election?

WHOOPI: Well, I learned that there was. I didn’t know that there was.

LIZ: You thought you were just another American going along …

WHOOPI: Yeah. Yeah.

LIZ: … and didn’t have high hopes.

WHOOPI: No. I was raised to think that anything was possible in America. And I realize now that there was a little qualifying voice that always said, "But don’t forget you’re black." You might not see your brother become a lawyer, a doctor. Let’s just put it that way. And so, I guess, it’s like a little scratch on your arm. It clears up and clears up and clears up and clears up and then you kind of know that something was there, but you don’t really think about it. And when I asked my mom, I said, "Did you ever think that you would see this?" And I thought she was going to say, "Of course," because she was the most positive person I know.

LIZ: Right.

WHOOPI: She said, "No, Caryn. I never." And when she said "never," the way she said it, "never thought I would see this in my lifetime," I thought, "Oh, my God. Here you are, you’ve paid taxes all your life. You’ve been an American all your life. Wait a minute, you just got to vote in the whole country in 1968." You know, it wasn’t until 1968 that blacks throughout the United States were able to vote.

LIZ: I know.

WHOOPI: Yes. But I forgot.

LIZ: You forgot. But you didn’t really think it meant that a black person could go to the total top.

WHOOPI: I realized that I didn’t buy the 1000 percent that I thought I did in the American dream.

LIZ: You know, if you’ve lived a long time you’re always astonished at things. I realize I was born only 14 years after women could vote in America. And so it’s the same thing. They did the Bill of Rights. They did the Constitution. They left slavery out of it because I think they really knew if they tried to put slavery into it then, that the nation would never be.