Whoopi Goldberg: "If people are unpleasant, you have to respond to them the same"

For two decades, Whoopi Goldberg (New York, 67 years old) has struggled as a producer to move forward with

Like most African-Americans, the photograph of the disfigured face of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Chicago boy who was kidnapped, tortured, and lynched on his summer vacation at his cousins' home in Mississippi in 1955, left him with a indelible mark on the soul.

His mother's decision to leave the coffin open during her funeral so that people could see what state the boy had been in generated an image that generation after generation has marked the United States.

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'Till, the crime that changed everything': his intentions are better than his art

"Emmett lives in our hearts," says the actress.

There is no black American artist, politician or sportsman who does not remember the first time he saw that portrait of Till's smashed head.

In addition, those accused of his murder were found not guilty at trial.

In 1955 he spurred the first wave of demands in the egalitarian civil rights movement.

Later, unfortunately, came decades and decades of racist murders and lynchings, many of them just as high-profile, such as the beating of Rodney King in 1991, the suffocation murder of George Floyd in May 2020 or, last January, the deadly police beating of Tyler Nichols.

But the first was Emmett Till.

“And despite the weight of that story, he had never been told in the cinema.

It seemed incredible to me, ”says Goldberg from London.

The nocturnal interview is carried out by telematic connection days before the reading of the Oscar nominations.

Subsequently, when his film did not achieve any candidacy, Goldberg once again insisted on the ballast "of systemic racism" in all the structures of his country, a racism that, according to the president, Joe Biden, "is a stain on the soul of the United States." United”, a segregation that emanates from the same system and that not even presidents like Clinton, Obama or Biden have been able to contain.

Goldberg began her steps in avant-garde theater before turning to stand-up comedy and crossing paths with stage and film director Mike Nichols, who broadened her perspectives and launched her on Broadway.

In New York, on stage, she was seen by Spielberg and, at the age of 30 and with only one previous film, she starred in

Today she is one of 18 people who have achieved the EGOT: winning the Tony, the Grammy, the Emmy and the Oscar, and she continues to proudly carry her nickname Whoopi - her real name is Caryn Elaine Johnson - which refers to the

the joke rubber bags with which the noise of farts is simulated.

"In the theater you don't have time to go to the bathroom," she recounted years ago in

and in its beginnings Goldberg had "a lot of gases".

Ask.

Do you remember the first time you heard of Emmett Till?

Answer.

As a child, when I saw the photo.

It was by accident.

My mother had left home.

My older brother, much more of a thug, taught it to me, and I was very innocent.

It is true that I grew up in New York and the situation was very different from that of the southern US. They are different worlds.

There systemic racism has penetrated at all possible levels.

There that segregation has lived protected under the wings of those who governed.

Till's photo reminds us of what can happen to you when you live in that systemic racism.

And the same goes for a woman, who for some is just a body, as for a homosexual.

You get that signal: "You don't have to be here."

Danielle Deadwyler and Whoopi Goldberg, in an image from 'Till, the crime that changed everything'.

Q.

Unfortunately, a message that many people receive.

R.

Actually, it can happen to all of us and in very different parts of the world.

It warns us against what we have to fight, that they can go against me or against you.

When we see Danielle [Deadwyler, who plays Emmett's mother] for the first time before the body of her son, we don't feel through her.

We feel with her.

Every father or mother understands that feeling of recognizing your children wherever they are or how they are.

That's why Danielle's performance is so powerful.

Actually the entire cast is amazing.

Q.

Even you [play the protagonist's grandmother].

R.

I'm fine [laughs].

Q.

Can this message of a latent danger be extrapolated to, for example, male violence?

In Spain we try to put an end to this scourge.

A.

That is.

All these behaviors are born of disrespect.

In his case, it would be women.

We educate the young generations under the motto that they can be whatever they want to be... until they meet a man or a policeman who considers them their property, mere merchandise.

It's crazy.

I just hope the movie clarifies with its example;

I don't believe in big changes, but I do believe in small steps, like releasing this film.

In every country there is a horrifying story that some do not want to talk about.

However, we must do it so that children do not repeat the same mistakes”

Q.

It took you 20 years to get the financing for the film.

Have you ever despaired?

R.

I have begged for money for two decades [laughs].

A lot of people weren't interested in remembering the Tills, because they don't want to stir up the past, as if nothing had happened that way.

Well of course it happened!

In every country there is a horrifying story that some do not want to talk about.

However, we must do it so that children do not repeat the same mistakes.

That's why Mamie Till-Mobley left her son's casket open: to bear witness.

What is not seen or what is not talked about in the end is as if it had not existed.

Q.

Do you think that times are changing?

A.

Yes and no.

It is true that the debate is open, public and universal.

At the same time there are endemic problems.

Or that social networks, which I don't use, have caused unpleasant discussions, hate messages.

That is why I have always believed in this film.

Behind it, there is a beautiful mother-child story that happened in 1955. You never want something like this to happen to you and, at the same time, I remain with the notions of love and family that arise from the misadventures of the Tills.

And of commitment, of courage on the part of a woman who decided to draw attention to what was happening.

Q.

In the film, she warns her son about the danger of being black in certain parts of the US. Did you have a similar conversation with your daughter?

R.

Ugh, it's far away.

I am a great-grandmother [she was a mother at 18 and a grandmother at 34].

Well, my grandchildren have seen my movies, they are amused by what I do... But this drama is something very personal, I hoped it would touch their depths.

They are between 20 and 30 years old, I put it on them and the first thing they said was that it could have been any of them.

And that they had known it for years, that they had heard, despite everything, the warnings we had given them as children.

Steven Spielberg gives instructions to Whoopi Goldberg on the set of 'The Color Purple'.

Q.

Is the United States a better country today?

R.

Well, I don't think much about it.

Wherever I am, when someone pushes my nose, I say: "Sorry, were you talking to me?"

And they recoil.

Q.

Your position is also one of privilege.

R.

No, it's just that I'm a big mouth.

And I have never cared, nor do I care to continue being the big mouth, if they show me disrespect.

I was taught in my childhood that if you were nice, people would be nice to you.

Now, if people are unpleasant, you have to respond to them in the same way or at least stop them.

I grew up in New York, and the situation was very different from that of the southern United States.

They are different worlds.

There systemic racism has penetrated at all possible levels ”

Q.

Sometimes it is necessary to be nice and sometimes loudmouthed.

R.

In many situations, there is no choice but to be the second.

Q.

Before you did not tell me if in these two decades fighting for the film you did not despair.

R.

Yes, because I saw that other historical events were reflected on the screen.

The situation changed with the murder of George Floyd.

When she was a child, I read Anne Frank's diary as a story that was part of our history;

the murder of Emmett Till is part of US history.

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