Whoopi Goldberg just compared being Black in America to living under the iron-fisted theocracy of Iran—and the backlash is as swift as it is deserved.
During a recent episode of The View, Goldberg squared off with co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin during a conversation about global oppression and human rights. Griffin, making the obvious point, noted that life in the United States in 2025 is vastly different from life under Iran’s brutal Ayatollah regime. “I think it’s very different to live in the United States in 2025 than it is in Iran,” she said.
Goldberg’s response? “Not if you’re Black.”
NEW: Whoopi Goldberg says black people living in America have it just as bad as people living in Iran.
Alyssa Farah: "I think it's very different to live in the United States in 2025 than it is to live in Iran."
Goldberg: "Not if you're black." pic.twitter.com/RiXBN1MK14
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) June 18, 2025
That’s right. According to Goldberg, Black Americans in the U.S.—a nation where she herself is a millionaire television star with a massive platform—are no better off than Iranian citizens living under a regime where women are routinely beaten for showing hair, dissenters are jailed or executed, and being gay is punishable by death.
Naturally, Iranian dissidents were outraged.
Dr. Sheila Nazarian, a renowned Iranian-American plastic surgeon who fled Iran with her family in 1985, called the comparison “deeply offensive” and “inaccurate.” Speaking to Fox News Digital, she said, “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 reminded the world what life in Iran is actually like: imprisonment, torture, rape, and execution for simply criticizing the regime or expressing opinions online. That’s not “systemic bias” or “microaggressions”—that’s pure, unfiltered tyranny.
Iranian-American journalist Lisa Daftari took it a step further, slamming Goldberg’s comment as “astonishing.” Daftari said, “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.”
Lisa Daftari, an expert on Iran and editor-in-chief of The Foreign Desk, told Fox News Digital, "Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s rule has been marked by unrelenting brutality and repression, both within Iran and beyond its borders. Under his direct command, the regime has executed… https://t.co/LncIXwtdSf
— Lisa Daftari (@LisaDaftari) June 19, 2025
Daftari, an expert on Iran and editor-in-chief of The Foreign Desk, also pointed out that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s regime is notorious for extrajudicial killings, torture, and exporting terror across the Middle East. “The regime has executed hundreds of prisoners in just the past year,” she wrote on X. “Khamenei’s regime rules through fear, surveillance, and systemic human rights abuses.”
Here’s the reality: America isn’t perfect. But equating Black life in the U.S. to life under the Ayatollah’s religious police state is not only delusional—it’s an insult to every man, woman, and child fighting real oppression in Iran.
Who listen 2 woopie goldTURD anyways ?