Whoopi: CNN race story 'pissed me off' 
CNN claimed in a recent story that black women were torn between voting for Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton because "for these women, a unique, and most unexpected dilemma, presents itself: Should they vote their race, or should they vote their gender?"
Whoopi Goldberg, host of ABC's The View, was obviously exasperated by the story when she brought it up for discussion, and the other panelists were quick to follow her lead.
"Don't you think that undermines the intelligence of the individual?" asked former reality show contestant Elisabeth Hasselbeck, to which Goldberg replied "Duh!"
"What was the reaction to that by the CNN poll?" wondered Joy Behar.
"Well, it pissed me off," Goldberg replied.
"A lot of black women are very angry," noted Sherri Shepherd, "because it's like we're looking at the issues. ... I want the best person who's going to lead the country." Shepherd has recently been involved in controversies involving her lack of intellectual background, first when she said last September that she'd "never thought about" whether the world was flat and then when she claimed the classical Greeks had thrown Christians to the lions.
"The commentators add to this," complained Behar, who is known on the program as a liberal. "They add fuel to the fire."
"Everybody keeps trying to be genteel about race, but it's right there," Goldberg added. "It's like the elephant in the room."
Behar did admit that "all things being equal, I would vote for a woman, just because I would."
However, Hasselbeck, known on the show as a conservative, insisted, "I don't see race. I don't see gender. I just see the individual."
"You don’t see that he’s black?" asked Shepherd skeptically.
Behar then became more aggressive, saying, "Why do you think that white men have always been in office? Because other white men vote for them. That’s why. They see a white man and they say 'Hey, he ...' People do vote for people who look like them a lot."
A full transcript of the segment can be read here.
This video is from ABC's The View, broadcast January 22, 2008.
CNN reports Black women feel pressured to vote for race and gender. This video is from CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, broadcast January 22, 2008.
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