Whoopi Goldberg and Rosie O’Donnell have highly-charged debate over racism on “The View”

Today’s Hot Topics segment of ABC’s The View should have been called Hot Under the Collar Topics.

Whoopi Goldberg and Rosie O’Donnell, who have clashed several times in recent months, got into a heated exchange during a discussion about racism.

Whoopi did not think it was racist that First Lady Michelle Obama shared with People magazine that she and President Obama have, at times in the past, been mistaken as the hired help.

Said Goldberg: ‘Race only comes up for other people.We’ve always been black. We don’t think about it; it just is. But other people want us to address: Is it racism? Do you think it’s racism? I don’t know.’

O’Donnell thinks it is and said: ‘Racism exists and that’s a fact of American history and life today, and so we have to face it.’

Voices then were raised:

Goldberg to O’Donnell: ‘Listen, you are a white lady telling me what is racist to you, which is fine.’

O’Donnell: ‘I’m a gay-American that has been called a dyke.’

Goldberg: ‘It’s not the same.’

O’Donnell: ‘I have a black kid I raise, Whoopi. I have a black kid in my house.’

Goldberg: ‘That is not the same.’

O’Donnell: ‘You don’t have to be black to know what racism is.’

Goldberg: ‘Yes you do.’

O’Donnell: ‘No you don’t.’

Goldberg: ‘Yes you do, baby. There are white people who get it. But this is why I will not agree with the blanket statement that America is racist. I don’t agree, I’m sorry. Kick my butt.’