Television personality Barbara Walters asserted Wednesday that former “Clueless” star Stacey Dash wouldn’t have borne the brunt of so much venom had she been a white supporter of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Dash, 46, came under withering fire after tweeting earlier this week that she intended to vote for the former Massachusetts governor instead of President Barack Obama.
Walters came to her defense when the ladies of “The View” addressed the controversy during Wednesday’s show, saying the remark elicited such a negative reaction only because the actress is herself black.
“Is this because it’s expected that all black people will be Democrats?” Walters asked.
Whoopi Goldberg staunchly disagreed, attributing the criticism to a highly polarized electorate rather than race.
“In America, where we all live,” Goldberg said, “we have the right to say, ‘Listen, I have a different opinion’ – without having some bonehead sitting in their house talking about, ‘You should be thinking like I think.’ No! That’s not America. … “This kind of reaction is coming from people sitting around who’ve forgotten who we are as a nation,” she added, defending Dash as a nice girl who did nothing wrong.
Walters interjected, asserting, “The reason she’s being attacked is because she is black, and the feeling is, black people should not be voting for Romney.”
“My quiet point is,” Walters responded, “if she were white, this wouldn’t have happened. The feeling was that because she was black, she automatically should have voted for the black man,” she added.
Dash appeared on “Piers Morgan Tonight” on Tuesday evening, telling the CNN host that she had endorsed Romney on Twitter because she wants the next four years to be different.
She came under attack on Twitter shortly after publicly supporting Romney on Oct. 7. Most of the negative responses against her had to do with her race and gender.
“The fury, I really don’t understand the fury,” she told Morgan Tuesday night. “I don’t understand it. I don’t get it…I was shocked, saddened. Not angry. Saddened and really shocked. But you can’t expect everyone to agree with you.”
Dash voted for Obama in 2008, but told Morgan she believed in Romney.
