Kelly Tilghman: In Plain View, My Response to Comments (through the first 16) - Tiger Woods is a Victim?
January 17, 2008
(Beneath this article are my responses to various comments posted to date…..)
Kelly Tilghman: In Plain View
By now we know the words - in reference to how young golfers should attempt to stop Tiger Woods - that came from Kelly Tilghman’s mouth.
“Lynch him in a back alley.”
Most of us also know that Tiger Woods called the incident a “non-issue.” His response, through his agent, Leigh Steinberg was this:
“It is a complete non-issue. Kelly and Tiger are friends. It might have been a poor choice of words, but there was absolutely no ill intent whatsoever.”
We cannot speculate as to whether or not that is his true feeling. What some people do not know is that on his first day of kindergarten Woods was grabbed and tied to a tree by a gaggle of sixth-graders who then spray painted “nigger” on him and then proceeded to throw rocks at the five-year old boy. We do not know if Tiger Woods recalls that moment each morning when he peers at his reflection in the mirror.
What is ironic about that insidious incident is that by the age of five the boy whose first name was once “Eldrick” already possessed a jewel of a golf swing and would, less than two decades later, dominate the world’s whitest sport - golf - in a way no one has and perhaps ever will. Today there is no debate as to Woods’ place in the world of golf or the sporting world - or the world of product endorsement.
But there is a debate about his friend Kelly Tilghman. Some members of the sports media have, inadvertently or otherwise, apologized for Tilghman, blaming her use of the word “lynch” on the youth and ignorance of people of her generation.
Kelly Tilghman is 38 years old.
Other members of the sports media attributed her use of the word “lynch” to “weird behavior.” Yet other members of the sports media have postulated that she might be so colorblind that the word “lynch” does not take on the meaning it “might” have for “some of us.” Using the word lynch in no way implies weirdness nor does it take on some alternative meaning when uttered by any American, no matter their color.
Kelly Tilghman has never been accused of weirdness and she is an American.
There is but one connotation for the word “lynch” in America’s past or present. And that connotation is as sordid today as it was two hundred years ago. Today, the children of Jena, Louisiana know the power of the word. Just as do students at Columbia University. Charles Hester, the Mayor of Selma, Alabama knows the power of the word. He used it during a town hall meeting just one week ago and a firestorm ensued.
Kelly Tilghman is a graduate of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, a city that is no stranger to the use of the noose. While Kelly Tilghman pursued her degree on the grounds of Duke as a political science major, John Hope Franklin, America’s foremost living black historian, was a distinguished professor of history at the university. His widely acclaimed book, From Slavery to Freedom, recounts the yeoman - but unsuccessful - work of the members of the NAACP to win passage of a federal anti-lynching law.
Kelly Tilghman is a South Carolina native. It was a senator from that state, Benjamin Tillman who, in 1900, gave an impassioned plea on the floor of the Senate defending the lynching of black people. The senator told his colleagues that lynching was a necessary tactic to facilitate tilting the balance of political power in post-reconstruction South Carolina back in favor of whites. Tillman said in part:
“We of the South have never recognized the right of the Negro to govern white men, and we never will. We have never believed him to be equal to the white man, and we will not submit to his gratifying his lust on our wives and daughters without lynching him.”
“In my state, there were 135,000 Negro voters, or Negroes of voting age, and some 90,000 or 95,000 white voters…. We were sorry we had the necessity forced upon us, but we could not help it, and as white men we are not sorry for it, and we do not propose to apologize for anything we have done in connection with it.”
Between 1882 and 1968, some 5,000 black people were lynched in the U.S. At least 156 were lynched in Kelly Tilghman’s home state.
There is no evidence for Kelly Tilghman being ignorant; Duke is not a school for the intellectually challenged. There is no evidence that she is “weird,” And there is certainly no evidence that she is colorblind.
There is ample evidence, though, that Kelly Tilghman is merely a product of her environment.
It is certain that in reference to quelling the dominance of a Jewish golfer, Kelly Tilghman would never have said, “Put him in a gas chamber.”
Then again, no one would offer anything close to an apology for her. We would not hear about her friendship with that fictional golfer. No Jewish person - as have black sports media members - would apologize for her use of that visceral image and vouch for her character. And sports fans and people in the general public would never, ever tell Jewish Americans or those of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) who represent them, to “get over it” as they have to black people who have openly chastised Kelly Tilghman.
Instead of a two-week suspension, the mythical Kelly Tilghman uttering, “Put him in a gas chamber” would have been summarily fired from her position at the Golf Channel and buried under an avalanche of focused and righteous anger never again to resurface into the public eye.
But this is not a fictional incident. The only “representative” of black people to speak out against Kelly Tilghman was, predictably, Al Sharpton. Other prominent black people like Bob Johnson, owner of the NBA Charlotte Bobcats and founder of the Black Entertainment Television (BET) was too busy pining for Hillary Clinton while not-so subtly implying that her in-party opponent, Barack Obama, was at one time little more than a drug-addict street thug. Other black men and women in economically or politically favorable positions said nothing at all.
Even less has been made of the fact that it took the Golf Channel five full days to levy a suspension against Kelly Tilghman. But as often happens in cases like these, the sins of the corporation, even the venial sin of acting slowly in the face of fast-mounting pressure, go underreported. And when they are finally brought to light, the iniquity is swatted aside by a company spokesperson who invariably speaks of how the board of directors (i.e. primary stockholders) owed it to all involved to carefully weight all the evidence presented to them and carefully consider all manner of arcane legalities far beyond the understanding of the hoi polloi.
It is this tactical maneuver that allows a corporation to sniff the winds of public sentiment to make the most popular decision. And in the case of Kelly Tilghman, allow the object of their ire to either bury themselves or position themselves so that they can be defended by their corporate employers.
Kelly Tilghman offered only a meek apology to those who “might have been offended” - implying that there are plenty people who share her sense that lynching a black man - “wink wink” - is but the punch line of a 2008-styled “black humor” joke. She forced her bosses hand and they laid down a two-week unpaid vacation.
The irony of this affair is that Kelly Tilghman’s professional accomplishments are similar to those of many, many black men and women past, present, and surely in the future.
A little more than a year ago at the Golf Channel, Kelly Tilghman broke through the proverbial “glass ceiling” of televised golf to become the first female play-by-play commentator on PGA Tour tournament telecasts.
But, unlike her black counterparts in this respect, Kelly Tilghman failed to understand that, while being “the first” might make her a golden child, she was and is beholden to the men who allowed her to advance in the first place. She had no idea that the privilege of her upbringing held no currency in the face of her corporate money masters; that she could be shackled and removed from her lofty insider view at a moment’s notice.
And with one wrong word a very public lynching could occur.
Hers.
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Man, I get some rest, come back and this is what happens….! My thoughts on the happenings of the day “lynch” was talked about like it was 1959…..
Golfweeks’s cover: Like Tim Finchem said, “the image smacks of tabloid journaliam.” And Finchem is Mr. PGA!…. That’s my feeling exactly - and it’s my feeling that it was okay because it has to do with black people. Again, they wouldn’t put a gas chamber on the cover (Hollywood imagery or not, the “gas chamber” in the collective iunconsciousness of the U.S. general populace means “Nazi,” means “genocide,” means “atrocity.”)
On Tiger: I have a theory and I’ll add it to the text right now. I’ll let you all know when I finish.
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I wrote a response to Michael Wilbon’s apology for Tiger and Tilghman (though he said her statement was reprehensible, he allowed her to escape with, she’s Tiger’s friend and, she’s probably ignorant like many of her “generation” - 38-year olds!!!!, sorry JB - and that black people under 30 on the streets of D.C. would frighten him with their lack of knowledge about lynching; he also said Tiger is plenty black…. In the response I said that this “ignorance” is a damning statement on our socio-cultural environment… Here is that response:
Mr. Wilbon-
I want to make it clear that I consider Tiger woods’ acceptance of Kelly Tilghman’s apology the act of a man who is perceived as the most non-threatening black personality in the entire world. To take a stand in this matter is to jeopardize this position – and jeopardize his position with his endorsers.
Now, the word lynch has but one relationship to modern American history, Mr. Wilbon (and as I wrote in an earlier comment here, off the top of my head I can think of quite a few different quips about how to gang up to stop Tiger Woods without uttering the word, lynch.)
Lynch, in American society, pertains to hanging black people from trees, stanchions, etc. — only. There is no other reason for its use. If Ms. Tilghman did not know, her being uninformed is all the more reason to fear the socio-cultural climate in the country in which we live.
But, then again, you, in your Washington Post Chat House talks say, “Lynchings were rural events, very far from alleys…” That statement is completely untrue. Lynchings did, in fact, occur quite often in town squares, in city parks – in the very urban areas you say they did not occur. There are well-known lynchings that occurred in Knoxville, Tn., Tulsa, Ok., and in your hometown of Chicago, Il. In 1919 over 70 black soldiers fresh from service in World War I were hung in Chicago ——— not some rural area.
Mr. Wilbon, ignorance is no excuse for using a word with one and only one meaning in today’s world. And if you do not believe that, ask the white teens who hung a noose on “their” tree in Jena. They didn’t know a noose was the physical representation of lynching, just like Ms. Tilghman didn’t know.
Sure they didn’t. And again as I wrote before here, perhaps the Golf Channel should look to hire Southern white teenagers with a rudimentary knowledge of golf and train them in the fine art of becoming television anchors and on-course commentators. I bet they would be knowledgeable enough not to use the word lynch in reference to Tiger Woods.
And since you exhibited so much disdain what was said here by your black colleagues that you lapsed into street colloquialisms, perhaps the words of Richard Sandomir in a New York Times article written January 11, 2008 might be more to your liking:
Faldo’s remark prompted Tilghman to glibly raise the verbal ante to a level that would make anyone shudder and wonder, What would make her say that? or, What else is in her oratorical toolbox? Sadly, her remark made her and Faldo giggle.
Page Thompson, the president of the Golf Channel, said Thursday by telephone: “Quite frankly, I don’t know what she was thinking. I found the comment to be offensive. No one here thinks that Kelly meant the remark to hurt Tiger Woods or anyone else, but the words were hurtful and that’s why she was suspended.”
Despite her apology to Woods on Saturday, Tilghman said nothing during the network’s four and a half hours on the air. She finally apologized on-air Sunday.
That raises some disturbing questions. One, if she knew enough to apologize to Woods the next day, why not to the public? And two, if no one at the Golf Channel ordered her on Saturday to apologize (could the lynch reference not have been heard by anyone in the production truck?), why didn’t she approach her producer?
Thompson said he did not yet know the answers.
“That’s something we have to fix,” he said, adding that if he had heard her say “lynch” on Friday, “I would have definitely told her to apologize immediately.”
This failure by Tilghman’s bosses to act faster is similar to how ESPN and the stars of “Sunday NFL Countdown” reacted to remarks by Limbaugh. He was in his fifth week of moonlighting on the program in 2003 when he described McNabb as overrated and said, “The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback can do well — black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well.”
He resigned under political and news media pressure before ESPN could fire him. And on the next Sunday’s “Countdown,” ESPN’s Chris Berman, Tom Jackson, Steve Young and Irvin offered their various regrets for not recognizing, and reacting, to Limbaugh.
Limbaugh’s career will be judged for much more than his brief football foray. But Tilghman’s may long be assessed through the prism of what she said, regardless of the quick forgiveness rendered by Woods through his agent (which echoed Woods’s charitable view of Fuzzy Zoeller for his insensitive comments about him in 1997).
But what does Sandomir know? After all, he is just a white guy.
p.s. When I was 13 I played the Easter Bowl Junior Tennis Tournament for the first time. One of the tournament directors and his six-year old son approached my doubles partner and I while we were playing backgammon. When the director’s little boy saw me he exclaimed, “Oh look Daddy. It’s a nigger!”
My doubles partner (who was/is white) and I were not angry with the boy, but with his father. Perhaps we should be angry with Ms. Tilghman’s parents.
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No Fallout?
This is from Sports Business Daily:
TILGHMAN FALLOUT: Golf Channel VP/Strategic Partnerships Tom Knapp said the Tilghman incident has caused “barely a blip” on the network’s sponsorship and advertising. He said some companies have called to express concern, but no advertisers or sponsors have backed out of commitments (Show, SBJ). Golf Channel Managing Dir of PR Dan Higgins said that e-mails to the net are “starting to swing in Tilghman’s favor.” Higgins: “Mid last week, it was probably a mixture of feelings. But since [Golf Channel suspended Tilghman last Wednesday], it’s been overwhelmingly positive toward Kelly.” In Orlando, Jeremy Fowler noted the net declined interview requests for Tilghman or Golf Channel President Page Thompson, and Higgins indicated that “an official return date hasn’t been set.” Fowler noted Tilghman could return next week at the Buick Invitational in San Diego, which is scheduled to be Woods’ first event of the PGA Tour season (ORLANDO SENTINEL, 1/16).
Ahhh, yes, nothing like corporate sponsors to let us know what way too much of white America is really thinking.
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Tiger Woods trauma
The reason Tiger Woods said Kelly Tilghman’s statement is a non-issue? Woods exhibits signs of being seriously traumatized by being tied to a tree, have the word “nigger” spray painted on him and having rock thrown at him.
His reaction to this incident is akin to that of a battered woman protecting the man who victimizes her. There is no way, no way Woods can say this is a non-issue. His lack of a reaction goes beyond protecting his endorsement money.
Additionally his father, Earl, could not have adequately explained the duality of Woods’ being to his son in the context of what that means in America. In America, Tiger Woods is a black man. He is not of Asian and African-American descent in the eyes of white - or black - America. If his father did not constantly reinforce this fact and reinforce all that is laudable about his blackness, he has no choice now but to find himself on an island, alone and with no one to talk to other than himself. His reinforcement instead came and comes from his participation in an all-white sport where he was and is constantly faced with those who victimized him. He has no choice but to violently rebel - verbally or otherwise - or succumb to the event that has acted to shape who him.
I’m saying this obviously, without knowing Woods. So this is not to say that there is much, much more that is coming into play here with his dismissive attitude toward Tilghman’s statement. However, it is very telling that he did not personally address the issue of something negative someone he calls a friend said about him but had his agent, Leigh Steinberg, do it for him. In the end, Tilghman’s statement might have acted as an event that has shaken his core being as shaped by the incident in kindergarten.”
So, in actuality, whatever is written about Woods not being “black” is true only in a very superficial sense. Like the battered woman without adequate help, Tiger Woods is a victim.
A victim of the very white world he so dominates.
Comments
45 Responses to “Kelly Tilghman: In Plain View, My Response to Comments (through the first 16) - Tiger Woods is a Victim?”
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Well said dwil.
In the end, they always prove to be who we thought they were. Should we be really be surprised?
gyang-
First, thank you…… Everyone shows their true feelings sooner or later. And people who think and feel what Tilghman said (and that type of thing) will always, at some point, let their feelings be known. Sometimes you might have to listen harder, it all comes out in the wash, y’know?
This is gonna show my lack of sensitivity, but, to be perfectly honest, as a white person, when the word lynch is used I don’t think about the horrific hangings of african-americans automatically. I think more of the old-west movie, mob beating down the jailhouse doors to get the dude kinda stuff. This is because I’m white and born in the 70s I’m sure. I understand it has a completely different connotation for african-americans. Kelly T. used it completely inappropriately and I was really bothered by her “might have offended” qualifier. I don’t see how she could not see that she did offend a ton of people.
Thanks for your input and understanding of the situation JB.
See this is a perfect example of atleast understanding that what she said was inappropriate.
I’m sorry JB, I don’t want to sound insensitive and I appreciate your position, but for the life of me I cannot understand how you as an American, born in the 70’s fail to see the connotation of the word lynching with the treatment Black Americans. I am in no way calling you dishonest but it is just hard for me to believe. To use Dwils example, it’s like saying “send him to the gas chamber” and automatically thinking of how they used to execute criminals in this country as opposed to the Holocaust.
I understand the job relies on a lot of ad-libbing, but I still cannot comprehend just how people can make references like that on air — without realizing the offense, and I really can’t believe that black columnists are brushing this off and apologizing for her.
I read Scoop Jackson’s column about this, and I wish Woods would have said something along the lines of “She is my friend, but the words she used were unacceptable and offensive to a number of people because of the connotations. I hope she chooses her words more carefully in the future.”
Then again, Republicans buy golf clubs too, right?
Dwil, I agree that Kelly is a product of her enviornment. It’s an enviornment that has no sensitivity for the history or concerns of Black people. Like JB (poster) said, when he thing of lynching, he thinks of cattle rustlers. But a cattle rustler was being lynched for commiting a crime. Blacks were lynched for looking at a white man/woman funny, or some other nonsense.
Also, the mob lynchings included native americans, chinese, but the vast majority were Black men. These vicious crimes fueled by racial hatered, were never prosecuted or invistigated. This showed complicity at the highest levels of white society. See the Dred Scott decision.
I understand that the lady is tigers friend, and he choose the route that he did. But he missed a golden opportunity to educate the public and kelly about the atrocities that were visited upon Black men by white men for nothing more than being Black.
In the end tiger decided to let those men, and brothers swing from that rope in vain.
http://thebiglead.com/?p=4215 take a look, d-wil, might be worth mentioning.
D-wil, where did you hear that kindergarten story? That’s terrible! Maybe that explains why Tiger can be so silent and unemotional at times; you learn to control your emotions when that sort of thing happens to you. It actually explains a lot about him…
Dwil - If you missed it, Parker used the Jewish reference during First Take this morning. Not sure if you two chatted or just minds thinking alike but I think its a good point.
Also, unlike the “n-word”, no one can blame hip hop or us as black people for use of the word “lynch.” To use that word, it has to be like you are saying, somewhere inside of you. And that is what bothers me about how Tiger handled this. If Tiger doesn’t want to be bothered by this controversy I can actually understand that on some levels. But to release a statement through his agent still calling her a friend is a bit much to me. No way could I call someone a friend when I know that somewhere in their heart and mind the thought of lynching me is floating around.
The way she used it is even different that what JB is saying, at least to me. She blatantly said he should be lynched. There is no way a 38 year old from the South could not know what that word means toward black people. No way.
Like Imhotep is saying, even if Tiger did not want to go after her, his statement should have at least reflected some level of condemnation for the words she used.
Also, let’s be honest, the media and general public isn’t ripping her because the old boys have a sweet spot for her. Compare the reaction to her statements to any of Jemele’s columns. It’s not even close.
I have to admit, that cover to Golf Weekly may bother me more than her comments. After the events in Jena I am just not in the mood for anything having to do with nooses.
AWB - As I’ve alluded to in a previous post, it’s not that hard to believe that a child of the ’70s living in West or Northeast wouldn’t have memories of Southern inequalities etched in their brains - not living there, not in the news, not yet in the history books. Suburban isolationism, you might call it.
Different, I think, for a child of the ’70s living in the South and later attending Duke.
As to the “gas chamber” references, I think that’s a different, Hollywood-influenced discussion.
Like JB, I too am a White guy who was born in North in the late 70s but my word association with lynching is quite different.
To begin, to lynch someone is to kill someone. Further, to speak of lynching a Black person is to associate oneself with a concerted campaign of social and political violence and terror against Black people by White people. For Kelly to so cavalierly joke about lynching Tiger in a back alley demonstrates not simply ignorance and insensitivity, but a sense of entitlement and White privilege beyond comprehension. The fact that she is a “friend” of Tigers makes the comment all the more reprehensible.
To take D-Wil’s analogy further, what would happen if say Michelle Wie had turned into the golf phenom she was purported to be and Nick Faldo laughing said, “maybe the other players should take her out in alley and have her raped.” Every Women’s rights organization in this country would be calling for his head, arguing that he had the audacity to make light of a terrible form of gender violence and by the end of the day he would be fired.
Unfortunately, Kelly has been allowed to make light of lynching.
The substituting of “Jewish” for “Black” and “Gas Chamber” for “Lynch” and its hypothetical outcome, seems to be an appropriate analogy. I really believe that a lot of folks sincerely do not equate lynching with the travesty that lynching visited upon Black Americans and how deeply it is woven into the history of the United States. And like JB above, many equate lynching, more with the “cowboys and indians” that Hollywood and other forms of MSM and our education system have foisted upon a sometimes unsuspecting and public. That so much ignorance is allowed and encouraged to flourish, even in the 21st century is infuriating to me on a personal level. That the Women’s BB team at Rutgers has to be slurred by a vile “radio personality” before folks figure out, that yes, in fact, some people really do fucking object to their girlfriends, daughters, teammates, friends, contemporaries, and neighbors as “nappy-headed ho’s” and that there is nothing funny at all about that, and that it is racist, elitist, and supremacist as hell.
Which brings me to one of my points. That anybody needed to apologize and/or explain away Mr. Imus, or Ms Tilghman for that matter. That somehow, Imus is reinstated so that he can continue degrading people, with particular emphasis on those he truly despises, such as anybody who does not look or sound like him apparently, is a travesty. Especially after the very staged “tour de sack-cloth and ashes” and groveling at the feet of those deemed by MSM to be worthy of granting absolution.
I would have had more respect for Imus if he had just come and out and said, “No, thats how I feel. Right or wrong. I fucked up by letting it slip, but the bottom line is I don’t respect Black America. I’m more hateful than you realized, so tough shit–pay closer attention next time”
As disgusting as that is, at least he would have had the balls to say what everybody knows anyway. That MSM and his elitist puppeteers are bringing him back on the airwaves just to score ratings and advertising dollars is no better than putting David Duke in prime-time. Imagine if Imus had made jokes about NY Met outfielder Shawn Green tracking down a flyball. “That’s sure some shylock out there in rightfield, bet that big nose of his is for sucking up the air because its free.” Though it sounds harsh, its an appropriate analogy. Reference to a behavorial stereotype coupled with a disparaging allusion to stereotypical physical features. Any chance that Imus gets his job back by running to a couple of Rabbi’s for forgiveness? Yeah. Right.
And each election cycle, the pandering political vermin troupe by Imus’ microphones, seeking the patronage of his audience. Disgusting. Almost as disgusting as the sepia-colored news photos of all those proper folks in neckties and collared shirts posing for the camera while another American is lynched. At least it wasn’t in a back alley. Real progress, right Kelly?
Until today, I knew nothing about the outrageous attack upon a 5 year old Tiger Woods. I don’t follow golf. At. All. I cannot think of a more elitist sport other than perhaps polo, or synchronized swimming. On the other hand, I have nothing but awe for Tiger Woods. Not soley because of his domination. But because there is a whole world out there, waiting and anticipating, some eagerly, for Tiger to make some sort of a mistake in “social” protocol. And that he has come this far, with barely a mishap is stunning. He is in effect, running a gauntlet. And that is what so many don’t see. That is why so many scratch their head or think they’re colorblind, when the reality is they’re just blind, as blind as the villagers outside of Dachau. Or Buchenwald. Or Treblinka. Out of sight. Out of mind. Hear no evil. It would seem to me that people who are really attempting to be intellectually honest, would recognize that Black Athletes (or any Black individual in any endeavor for that matter) have to be better, smarter, faster, stronger, more courteous, more modest more “appropriate” than any of their white contemporaries, to achieve even the illusion of equal treatment and equal recognition, much less actual equality, even with so-called “equal opportunity”. Simply stated, the cliched “double-standard”. (To wit the absence of Randall Cunningham from the NFL HOF, the singling out of Barry Bonds for extreme pharmaceutical therapy, constant irrelevant gossiping about The Williams Sisters) Tiger Williams is almost “required” to “forgive” or “dismiss” by the protocols of the sport he has chosen to dominate. And the ramifications to him if he did not acquiesce? I think Barry Bonds and Gary Sheffield and Jim Brown and Randall Cunningham and particularly Muhammad Ali could offer some very succinct insights.
By the way, just to get this out of the way now–I’m infuriated by Kelly’s ignorance and lack of good taste. D-Wil, please post about 50 more pictures of Kelly to help me better express my lust, err, outrage at her actions. :-p (runs for cover)
Ok, more maturely, I always hate it when one minority who makes it to the top turns around and stabs another minority in the back. Women/blacks/Hispanics are sometimes the harshest critics of their own people or other groups that you would think deserved their sympathy.
D-Wil: Great article and I hope that it allows people to see the word lynch can start by having diffrent historical conations to people.
The bigotry or ignorance factor that some people adopt for their lifetime by trying to benign lynching as just a way to express displeasure with a waiter or a athlete , can not bode well for race relations.
I do wonder how much Kelly’s mainstream beauty played in her laughable suspension? Had she looked like Marge Schott or a {manly} looking LPGA golfer,would the defenders of her been so many?
Tiger did choose to sit out this contoversy which will not look good on him,if another athlete is in the same situation ,and calls out a future lynch mob leader.
Ms.Tilghman has left me with a mental image of Tiger in a back alley ,in a rope ,with Phil Mickelson Mike Weir,Fuzzt Zoeller etc. laughing ,swinging their golf clubs.
A 2 week suspension and her mainstream beauty will not get me past that awful image when I see an image of her or hear or words.
PB, http://thesportshernia.typepad.com/blog/2008/01/media-members-r.html will amuse you.
Thank you for the parody link mcbias.LOL
Wow this might be the best comments I have ever read on this site. You’ll laid it down well on here.
McBias - that column was both hilarious and on the mark.
Here’s a comment left by “vvvbvbvb”:
vvvbvbvb, on January 17th, 2008 at 3:32 pm Said: Edit Comment
I hate niggers.
His email address is: jkjk@hotmail.com
I haven’t tried it, but I’m sure it’s a fake address……
ALSO…..
TO ALL….. CHECK THE SITE I WROTE RESPONSES TO YOUR COMMENTS, SO FAR.
D-Wil, it gets a little worse if you read the Golfweek article’s logic. I reprint my comment from elsewhere about this: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/golf/2008-01-16-golfweek-cover-image_N.htm
“From the article–”Seanor said there was significant internal debate about art for the project. “If you’re going to do this story on the cover,” he said, “you don’t have many choices. It’s Kelly Tilghman’s face or a noose.”
My retort: Even if those were the only two choices, I’d rather see a pretty blond than a symbol of murder. And there are other choices. How about a blurred picture of a black man golfing? Or putting, I don’t know, Tiger’s face on the cover, something I’m sure they’ve never done before? It’s interesting that putting a black man’s face on the cover wasn’t even on his mind…
JB, some modes of death just have a certain race (either the perpetrator or the punished) attached to them. Examples for me:
Lions: Romans, done to Christians
Drawn-and-quartered: Middle-Ages European torture
Tarred and Feathered: American Colonial times, done to the English Loyalists
Lynched: 1900’s, done to the blacks
Gas Chamber: 1930’s, done to the Jews
However, I did some research and refreshed my memory–horse thieves were also lynched (see http://www.answers.com/topic/lynching, Columbia Encyclopedia entry). So JB’s comment about the Wild West is not incorrect. The problem? Tiger was going to be punished for his superiority to his fellows, not for a crime. So Kelly’s still in trouble–context didn’t fit.
Sheesh, sorry D-Wil that I’m over-running your comment section. I’ve been working hard the last few days, and now that I have work free time, I’m running amuck in the comment sections.
mc-
There were no black people in on the decision-making process for that cover, so of course they thought the noose was cool to put on their cover……
And there’s this from Sports business Daily:
TILGHMAN FALLOUT: Golf Channel VP/Strategic Partnerships Tom Knapp said the Tilghman incident has caused “barely a blip” on the network’s sponsorship and advertising. He said some companies have called to express concern, but no advertisers or sponsors have backed out of commitments (Show, SBJ). Golf Channel Managing Dir of PR Dan Higgins said that e-mails to the net are “starting to swing in Tilghman’s favor.” Higgins: “Mid last week, it was probably a mixture of feelings. But since [Golf Channel suspended Tilghman last Wednesday], it’s been overwhelmingly positive toward Kelly.” In Orlando, Jeremy Fowler noted the net declined interview requests for Tilghman or Golf Channel President Page Thompson, and Higgins indicated that “an official return date hasn’t been set.” Fowler noted Tilghman could return next week at the Buick Invitational in San Diego, which is scheduled to be Woods’ first event of the PGA Tour season (ORLANDO SENTINEL, 1/16).
I knew about Tiger being the victim of a racial attack as a youngster. I also know about Earl’s role is a pioneer in collegiate sports, so Tiger knows what it is like to be a “race man,” and as far as dignity, he’s played that role well.
Tiger, however, is NOT Arthur Ashe. He’s a good looking guy like Arthur. Smart as a whip like Arthur. But I don’t know if he’s willing to go to jail for what he believes in as far as fundamental rights for all like Arthur was. That’s not a knock against Tiger. He is more like Michael Jordan in that way: “Republicans buy shoes, too.” or so the parlance goes. And no matter how much we hope that Tiger would speak out on certain issues, the Kelly Tilghmann episode is one that he didn’t have to forum-shop for.
Kelly Tilghmann took a dump right in Tiger’s front lawn. And he’s quietly cleaned it up. I’m with most of you on this: if Kelly Tilghmann ever said something akin to “I never knew what lynching meant with regards to African-Americans,” I’d call/e-mail every Duke grad (black or white) that I know and post that link with the caption reading, “Your university is a piece of shit and graduated a moron.”
She went to Duke where there are hundreds of books on lynching. She could’ve read one while she was there. She could’ve asked John Hope Franklin about the topic while a student, and if she didn’t, she needs to take an online course from him PDQ. And since Tiger didn’t explain to her how ignorant the comment was, maybe Tiger could’ve done that and headed off Al Sharpton at the pass and spared his friend a suspension altogether.
For the life of me, why didn’t she say something like, “If these guys want to beat Tiger, maybe they need to practice like he does…..” or “If these guys want to beat Tiger, they might want to change the dates on the Masters and have the tournament without him being there” or “Hope he skips a Major to attend the birth of his child….” Anything but lynch him in a back alley?!?!? WTF was that???
What woman says “lynch him in a back alley?”
Wilbon’s comments on this are bothersome as well. I’ve met the man many times socially, and he’s getting a bit Uncle Ruckus for my liking. His wife went to the same university I attended and is from the DC area where I am from. Would the in-laws that grew up at a time when a black man in Bethesda, MD had BETTER have been someone’s valet running errands? Who did the in-laws feel about hearing their son-in-law absolve a young guy like Tiger for saying “No problemo” when getting slurred, albeit, accidently without so much as an immediate on-air “my bad” from this woman?
I wonder if my man Byrd in Texas is in the afterlife now wondering if what happened to him was a lynching? Clarence Thomas’ “high-tech lynching?” John Lynch. Jair Lynch. Merrill Lynch. Linchpin. Lynchburg, Virginia.
DWil: Good response to Wilbon.
To me it seems when Tiger allowed Stienberg to issue a no harm no foul comment concerning lynching ,it gave black journalist and the MSM a pass in not pressing the issue much more.
Had a main stream beauty commentator spoken of taking a prominent black journalist into the back alley and lynching him,even with a benign no harm no foul statement from the target ,some MSM journalist would have recognized the significance the word lynching has.
I may be wrong and the gate keepers have often disappointed me ,but I like to think /hope many black journalist would have personalized the statement with a very difrent response than what transpired.
That attitude of choosing to call foul only when your personal ox is gored by much of the black press ,does make them in large part hypocrites.
Phil-
Great comment…. in Bethesda they still had little black jockeys on some lawns when I was a kid and just moved to D.C.! So, yeah, Wildon is growing increasingly disturbing.
Tonight on PTI he said he didn’t know what to think about the Golfweek cover. He said right now he doesn’t think the noose cover is too much, but tomorrow he might think it is ————– WTF!!!
And you’re right about something else - a white WOMAN saying that?! The more I think about it, the more she surely knew.
P.B.-
Thanks. It was pointed out to me that a lot of black journalists waited until people like Wilbon wrote before chiming in on Wilghman, which is specious in itself…..
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And like JB above, many equate lynching, more with the “cowboys and indians” that Hollywood and other forms of MSM and our education system have foisted upon a sometimes unsuspecting and public. That so much ignorance is allowed and encouraged to flourish, even in the 21st century is infuriating to me on a personal level.
I don’t think word association of “lynch”to Old west outlaws, necessarily means ignorance. I grew up in the west (Colorado), and the local history is far more dominated by west, and outlaws than it is by racial strife and racial violence. Doc Holiday died at my college, Kit Carson, Buffalo Bill were local historical characters.
Ignorance would be not knowing that “lynch” could be offensive to African-American’s I know it can be, but my first image when the word is said is Black hats, not black people. I don’t see how this makes me racist or ignorant.
Addendum: I wasn’t trying to say that Tilghman’s comments weren’t wildly inappropriate because of the context they were used under.
Dwil - I really can’t believe Wilbon as of late.
.
Imagine if Imus had made jokes about NY Met outfielder Shawn Green tracking down a flyball
Or if Imus had called a Washington Post reporter a “boner-nosed, beanie-wearing Jewboy”?
I have a pretty good idea what would’ve happened: nothing. See this link (and note the date):
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1751
I don’t support Imus or Tilghman, of course; I just get annoyed when people play the “well, if had been , it would’ve been a completely different story” game. There’s never a way to know. Hell, I could say “Tilghman would’ve been canned by now if she was 50 pounds heavier and a lesbian”, and who could prove me wrong?
Sorry, the markup got eaten in my last post; I meant to say “well, if (person) had been (other race/sex/sexual orientation), it would’ve been a completely different story”
Jibblescribbets: At 5 years old I learned the fearful black man meaning of lynching.
At 10 years old or so I learned horse thieves were also lynched ,but far from the rate of black men.
At 14 years old I learned how the fear of lynching partly kept black people from aspiring for higher education and loftier dreams.
Not learning about lynching in a way that I did not does not at all make you ignorant or a racist.
The people though who choose to remain with out any complex thinking ,and see lynching only from a wild west point of view or as an everyday phrase such as lynch the busboy ,lynch the athlete,without taking at all into account what the word lynch rightfully means to most black people,I hope you,like me , can do without!
P.B.-
Complex thinking….. that’s what some mainstream writers I know tell me is missing from sports writing. And the editors, most of whom have no - or little - content experience as reporters or writers, think the public can’t concentrate beyond an 850-word limit, so we get much of the pap we read today. Then, when their writers become irrelevant quickly, they wonder what the hell is going on, so they keep hiring mediocre writers who, in turn, continue to become irrelevant.
Another offshoot of of these editors is that, since they don’t know content, they hire based not on the quality of the thought that goes into a particular writer’s work, or the quality of the writing, but they hire people whose ideology matches theirs.
Now, with that in mind, if you look around the sports media landscape you can see exactly what these writers are talking about. You can see which editors have content backgrounds and which do not and look at their hires and know exactly how these editors feel about the sporting world; know their politics, their worldview.
But.
I’m also being told that there is definitely a movement toward thoughtful writing and complex thinking, whether it is in commentaries or feature-length articles. and the editors who are not content people will have to honor this movement - or perish. And their writers will be marginalized and perish with them.
[…] to dismiss it as insignificant rather than take a stand on something directly affecting him. D-Wil made this point earlier; Rob Parker of the Detroit News repeated it on First Take yesterday: if Tilghman had said a Jewish […]
Dwil,
Just read that the Golfweek editor was fired over that cover choice.
Dwil,
That cover choice was stupid by Golfweek. Absolutely booty.
I do find something HIGHLY interesting about this Tiger/Tilghmann relationship: since Tiger has gone all Christ-like and has forgiven Tilghmann, have you noticed that white people have elevated Tiger to MLK-like status in that he didn’t up the ante or grandstand on his friend?
One thing you’ll hear about Tiger is that he’s arrogant, aloof, doesn’t smile enough, too many handlers around him. Honestly, forgiving Tilghman has actually made him more fans in the white community and puzzled black folks who ask, “How can a guy that was the victim of racial animus allow someone to say that about him, friend or not?”
Maybe Earl Woods was right. Maybe Tiger is the Messiah. Or Jesus Shuttlesworth.
[…] Wilbon spoke of pertaining to her job. There is another way to look at Tilghman and her relationship with “breaking the glass ceiling” of golf […]
Wow! By far, the best, most intelligent and articulate article I have read on this subject, and I have read quite a few.
Thanks!
Michael-
Thank you. And I’m glad you found the site….
Phil-
Sorry to take so long to reply, but that comment is priceless… “or Jesus Shuttlesworth.”
Surely.
First, I agree the Golfweek cover was totally inappropriate and inflammatory. The purpose was to leverage an unfortunate and ignorant mistake by Kelly Tilghman. I would suggest, perhaps the fact that Kelly Tilghman did not attribute the term “lynch” with the horrific events of this country’s past is a positive thing. Studying history is important to avoid mistakes, but eliminated the ills of this country’s past is a great thing. Racism and hatred are sicknesses of the human spirit. I actually believe people like Al Sharpton thrive on, and promote hatred and racism so that they can grab a spotlight and live off of other peoples hard work.
I doubt that Tiger cares what race classification you want to give him. He knows of his own life experiences. I suggest that his family life as a child did not hide the fact he is black. He had a great relationship with his father, perhaps if more black children had stable family units like Tiger had we would have less problems today. Tiger has no problem with white people, he dated white girls exclusively, even before being famous and wealthy. He is well spoken well educated, professional, and in control of his life. He has “overcome” incredible hardships and I pray that his child never has to deal with this issues ( as I wish the same for my white child).
The media has embraced KT’s error andhas labeled her a racist and supported thier claims by citing her state of birth, Duke University ( Beat Dook!), and pulling from history to support this. How many German immigrants are latent Nazi’s? What about all of the Asian-Americans, when will they band together to take another shot at Pearl Harbor, or the middle easterners, aren’t they all just terrorists? Of course aren’t most black men either unemployed, alcoholic ex-cons and most black women uneducated unwed mothers? OF COURSE NOT! Now before you label me as a racist, hater of black Americans- I am white, I would vote for Condoleeza Rice for President ( because she is smart, and would be much better than anyone else seeking the nomination). I would and have dated black women, asian, and white women. I do not use the N-word, I do not think the N-word, it is repulsive to me and I disdain hearing it used by blacks, I don;t udge people based on race, religion, job titles.
It is time to let this issue with KT rest . IT is time for people to move on to items of greater importance, which may be to look at the high profile black leaders and evaluate what damage they themselves may cause by some of their actions.
“First, I agree the Golfweek cover was totally inappropriate and inflammatory. The purpose was to leverage an unfortunate and ignorant mistake by Kelly Tilghman. I would suggest, perhaps the fact that Kelly Tilghman did not attribute the term “lynch” with the horrific events of this country’s past is a positive thing. Studying history is important to avoid mistakes, but eliminated the ills of this country’s past is a great thing.”
So being ignorant of history is a good thing and, such ignorance is important to elimiating the ills of this country’s past? What utter garbage. How can you eliminate the ills of this country’s past if you are ignorant of them? Pushing historical amnesia as a solution is ridiculous.
“Racism and hatred are sicknesses of the human spirit. I actually believe people like Al Sharpton thrive on, and promote hatred and racism so that they can grab a spotlight and live off of other peoples hard work. ”
Of course…, the Al Sharpton bogeyman rides again! For some, Al Sharpton is like Monty Python’s “Spanish Inquisition” - he’s eveywhere and responsible for everything. If I had a nickel for every time somebody tried to blame their or societal racism on Al Sharpton, I’d be richer than that Facebook guy.
I doubt that Tiger cares what race classification you want to give him. He knows of his own life experiences. I suggest that his family life as a child did not hide the fact he is black. He had a great relationship with his father, perhaps if more black children had stable family units like Tiger had we would have less problems today.
Well, I guess it would’ve been hard for them to “hide” it (whatever that means) especially after he was tied to a tree and called nigger while kids threw rocks at him. Btw, “we” who? Nice back handed bigotry/stereotyping there.
“Tiger has no problem with white people, he dated white girls exclusively, even before being famous and wealthy. He is well spoken well educated, professional, and in control of his life. He has “overcome” incredible hardships and I pray that his child never has to deal with this issues ( as I wish the same for my white child). ”
Aside from your strange attempt to speak to whether Tiger has a “problem” or not with white people (again, whatever that means), it’s it hilarious and telling that you use well spoken as your first descriptive term for Tiger.
“The media has embraced KT’s error andhas labeled her a racist and supported thier claims by citing her state of birth, Duke University ( Beat Dook!), and pulling from history to support this. How many German immigrants are latent Nazi’s? What about all of the Asian-Americans, when will they band together to take another shot at Pearl Harbor, or the middle easterners, aren’t they all just terrorists? Of course aren’t most black men either unemployed, alcoholic ex-cons and most black women uneducated unwed mothers? OF COURSE NOT!”
Those are assinine comparisons. The media is focusing on a specific comment from a specific person and using her, and only her, background and age and history to show that she should have known better. They have not and are not casting general asperions against a group of people.
“Now before you label me as a racist, hater of black Americans- I am white, I would vote for Condoleeza Rice for President ( because she is smart, and would be much better than anyone else seeking the nomination). I would and have dated black women, asian, and white women. I do not use the N-word, I do not think the N-word, it is repulsive to me and I disdain hearing it used by blacks, I don;t udge people based on race, religion, job titles.”
Yeah right whatever. More importantly, I question the intelligence of ANYBODY who would vote for Rice for POTUS but it’s amusing how you use her as a shield against any charges of racism along with the usual “I date black women…Imus type defense (black people use the N-word)…yadda…yadda…
“It is time to let this issue with KT rest . IT is time for people to move on to items of greater importance, which may be to look at the high profile black leaders and evaluate what damage they themselves may cause by some of their actions.”
Ah yes, now we come full circle. Back to those “high profile black leaders” and their evil ways, right? You were just sitting there minding your business, dating black women, not using the N-word, ready to vote for Rice and then they came along and destroyed race relations. It’s such a tragedy that your innocence was taken away form you. Boo hoo.
Kelly is an outspoken RACIST who utilizes her career as her mouthpiece to accentuate her hatred for minorities. If you listened to “her-self-righteous-wanting-to-happen” comments, you will hear that she DID NOT STUTTER, SHE ENUNCIATED CLEARLY, AND SHE STATED HER COMMENT AS IF SHE HAD JUST LEFT A PUBLIC DISPLAY OF THE LYNCHING OF A BLACK MAN.
What Kelly wanted to do was to make a statement as a representative for her colleagues and to see what the outcome would be. In other words, Kelly wanted to see how far the network, that employs her, would allow her to get away with any and all insensitive statements.
Actually, it is a known fact that Kelly knew what the recourse, reprimand, and/or punishment could have been. But her employer decided to let her off the hook and told her that she was to take a two week unpaid vacation and then return to the network with a pre-written apology that whe would read to the general public.
Kelly will watch her words closely for the sake of her representatives and colleagues; but her sentiments are still the same towards Tiger Woods and any other minority.
It is BACK TO NORMAL FOR KELLY TILGHMAN!!!