Thank Goodness for Leap Year
February 29, 2008
Well, another Black History Month has come and is one day from gone. And for sports television, the months get progressively less important; this one was the worst.I watched a fine show on ESPN on Thursday, February 28 titled, “Say It Loud,” an obvious nod to James Brown’s legendary, seminal, and all that chant of a song, the reason Public Enemy could be what it was song of a song of the early 1970s feeling among black people of self-determination and pride. Though many sports were dealt with to some degree, golf was the prime mover of this documentary. The show was so good an excerpt of it was aired during the 6 p.m. EST Sportscenter.
It was so good that my five-and-a-half year old daughter sat rapt, unable to take her eyes off its images and interested only in the words of people like Eddie Payton, brother of Walter Payton and Jackson State University golf coach and Lee Elder, the first black man to play in the Masters.
Afterward she asked me, “Why are white people so mean?” She asked me, “White don’t white people like our skin color?” She asked me, “Why doesn’t Tiger Woods help more?”
All those questions came from a five-year old girl whose mother is white, a five-year old who differentiates her mother from other white people - makes sense of her whiteness - by saying her skin isn’t white, but “peach.” This caramel-colored little girl was able to grasp all of that through a three minute excerpt from “Say It Loud.” That’s how good it was.
Thank goodness the show was aired from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. this afternoon.
But.
Why the hell was it only shown at 3:30 in the afternoon on February 28 of Black History Month?
Why the hell is the CIAA (Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association) Conference Basketball Tournament (Historically Black Colleges and Universities conference) shown on ESPN Classic, an ESPN station not at all known for its live programming - during Black History Month? Not ESPN2? No no no, that would be too much to ask. Besides, St. Louis and St. Joe’s is being aired on ESPN2 and after that, at 9 p.m. EST Michigan State plays at Wisconsin on ESPN2. And guess what’s on ESPN at 9? “TBA.” Yeah, seriously. TBA. Some college basketball game, any college basketball game, just not a CIAA Conference Tournament basketball game.
And ESPN has deemed this week in college basketball, “Judgment Week.” It’s just not Judgment Week not for the CIAA Conference Tournament teams which will produce the first entry into the field of 65 teams that will play for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship in March and the first Monday night in April.
Talk about hookin’ black folks up, huh?
But back to Say It Loud. Quite a bit of time was spent talking about black golfers. Viewers were informed that Pete Brown was the first black man to win a PGA tournament (common thought holds that Charlie Sifford or Lee Elder was the first). Sifford talked about needing only to shoot a 75 in the final round of a tournament to qualify for the Masters but he shot a pair of 77s and failed in his attempt to be the first black man to play at Augusta.
But by this time the show got me to thinking about the insidious nature of racism and how there really is no such animal as “unintentional racism.”
Plainly, it - “unintentional racism” - is bullshit.
The program referred to Lee Elder’s (pictured above) first trip to Augusta to play the Masters and referenced the now-famous moment when he reached the 18th green all the black staff was lined up in back of the all-white spectators to watch a man they considered a hero finish his first round of the first leg of the four Grand Slam tournaments. The documentary touched on black caddies and how they no longer exist, that the golden age of professional golf, from a diversity perspective, came from the fact that minorities learned the game as caddies. Sifford, Elder, and Lee Trevino all took their turns walking bags for white patrons at country clubs, playing with begged and borrowed clubs early in the morning or after dusk. And their self-taught swings and decidedly non-country club attitudes made them celebrities on the PGA Tour.
Then country clubs and the Tour made two crucial changes. First, black caddies were weeded out of caddy jobs at country clubs. Since those, now white men, caddied at the clubs in America where the majors - Grand Slam tournaments - were also being held, they became the caddies for PGA players. Secondly, the qualifying system for gaining entry to PGA tournaments changed.
In 1965 the PGA derived a cut off point for earnings and anyone beneath that point had to attend qualifying school the following year to gain or regain their PGA card. This year, as it has been for some time, the top 125 money leaders automatically qualify to play in PGA Tour events the following year.
The cost for “pre-qualifying” for what is known as “Q” School is $2,500. After playing 72 holes of golf the top players from various pre-qualifying tournaments around the country advance to Stage One of Q School. Here, another $2,500 fee must be paid to play in Stage One. Stage Two can cost anywhere from $4,250 to$5,000; Stage two costs range from $3,750 to $4,250, and the Final Stage costs range from $3,250 to $3,750. At somewhere around $16-18,000 for those who do not receive exemptions that allow them to begin their journey at later stages, the act of qualifying for a PGA card eliminates all but the wealthiest aspiring professional golfers in the country. On average about 1,100 golfers are entered in Q School and about 40 gain their PGA cards each year.
This is economic racism at its finest.
It does not take a rocket scientist to see how the money needed to qualify for a PGA card eliminates the majority of minorities who would aspire to play on the PGA Tour. The old method of qualifying for a professional tournament required players to show up the week before the scheduled PGA event and pay greens fees and general costs. Players came and signed up on a first-come, first-serve basis until the maximum number of players allowed - from 50 to 90 - filled the entry limit. The golfers played, usually, two rounds and the lowest four to eight scoring players were entered into the PGA event beginning the following Thursday. If the tournament was a major - other than the Masters - there was a set of qualifying tournaments to be played ending in the playing of four rounds, with the lowest scoring golfers gaining entry into the Grand Slam.
If the PGA wanted to be inclusive of minority golfers there are many ways around Q School, including maintaining the old method of qualifying for tournaments. That’s unintentional racism, right? Country clubs, being privately owned are not subject to hiring laws that could draw civil suits for failing to provide fair opportunities for minorities to be employed as a caddie at a club. More unintentional racism - has to be.
No. Economic racism, for sure. And purposeful? Of course.
Which brings me to the subject of Kelly Tilghman and “lynch him in a back alley.” Kelly Tilghman is a racist - period. The only thing unintentional about Tilghman’s racist uttering was that she unintentionally let it be known that she is a racist. The word “lynch” does not come from the mouth of a person who is not a racist; not in that situation. It does come from mouths to describe the murderous treatment black people received at the hands of whites in America. It does come from mouths when describing what the noose meant that the little teenage crackers in Jena, Louisiana left slung over “their” tree at school. It does not come out of the mouth of anyone other than a racist when describing a remedy to stop the efforts of a golfer dominating the PGA Tour whose father is black.
The figurative and very public lynching of Kelly Tilghman should know no bounds.
Kelly Tilghman’s statement and the reaction to it was an instructive lead-in to Black History Month. It was instructive in that no public flogging of Tilghman was allowed. And some of the people who fought hardest to stop the rising tide of voices coming out against Tilghman were —— black sportswriters and black sports columnists.
As we know by now, Michael Wilbon of the Washington Post and of ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption (PTI) basically told everyone to shut up because Tilghman is a friend of his and he knew she did not mean what she said. What she did mean, we will never know because people like the esteemed Mr. Wilbon and former NBA player Greg Anthony, also now of ESPN and who claims to “know” Tilghman, never held Tilghman accountable for what she “meant” - at least publicly.
What, in retrospect, is interesting about the incident is that we never heard from the two black journalists closest to the PGA Tour, the New York Times‘ Damon Hack and Golf Digest’s Pete McDaniel. The only problem with Hack is that he is no longer at the NYT. He is now at Sports Illustrated and is an “NFL expert.” One black mainstream golf writer down, one to go.
McDaniel, though, did write about Tilghman. However, if you watched ESPN or read national daily newspapers or anything else other than Golf Digest you would never know that the best-known black golf journalist in America wrote a scathing commentary about Tilghman’s lynch statement.
You see, McDaniel, unlike Wilbon and Anthony, never pretended to have Tilghman’s number on speed dial, never attempted to ally himself with someone who amounts to just another television talking head - and for Tilghman, another vacuous fake blonde with about as much to say as the next play-by-play announcer who leans on the color commentator next to her for meaningful verbiage about the action before him or her.
The black man closest to the tee, to the green, to the clubhouse whose words we never heard, whose face we somehow never saw, had this to say about Kelly Tilghman’s word choice:
Tilghman apologized to Woods. He accepted. Forgiving the person is easy. Forgiving the word is damn hard. Maybe what disturbs me more than anything, though, is the trivialization that followed.
No racist comment, perceived or real, intentional or otherwise, can be tolerated on public airways. It speaks to the insensitivity and ignorance of certain groups to a dark past in American history — an era when lynching was a horrific hate crime disguised as social control for a disenfranchised people. Some of us still smart from those wounds.
This incident is also symptomatic of the disrespectful nature of a society that believes it can say anything and escape scrutiny. Racially and sexually derogatory lyrics corrupt our youth; comedy routines routinely degrade individuals and groups; evangelists continually cast swine before pearls. This nation’s underbelly doesn’t need scratching — it needs major surgery.
As a son of the South, where lynching carries more significance than any place else, I believe that word is far more egregious than earlier incidents involving Al Campanis, Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder and Don Imus. “Lynch” conjures up the most negative connotations. Violence. Torture. Death.
And this in a game that we would like to hold to the highest standards, even though a closer examination of its history reveals exclusionary practices as well as racial tension. Do you think Hall of Famer Charlie Sifford, also a son of the South, views any reference to lynching as anything but hurtful and disrespectful? In the 1960s he and other black pioneers faced the very real possibility of being lynched while trying to play a game that didn’t embrace them, on courses that didn’t want them, on a tour that didn’t welcome them.
We may close our eyes and wait for the embarrassment to go away, but whether we like it or not, the lesson has been learned again and maybe not for the last time in golf.
Poignant, eh? Eloquent, yes?
But Pete McDaniel’s voice and face were nowhere to be heard and seen when we needed him most ————— before Friday, February 29, 2008.
Thank goodness for leap year.
If it wasn’t for leap year, you’d be reading this on March 1, after the fact of Black History Month. If it wasn’t for leap year you wouldn’t know that Lee Elder, the man who Tiger Woods once evoked to sell Nike golf clothes and shoes, is sorely disappointed in Tiger Woods. You would not know that Elder feels that Woods’ foundation, with its emphasis on helping 7-17-year old underprivileged children, is not doing enough. Elder says of Woods’ school, those children are “the future,” why would he look toward uncertain times to come for the potential for change. Elder says to Woods, “What better time for change than now?”
You would not know what Elder feels if you were at work or on your way home between 3:30 and 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, February 28, 2008.
And you would not know what Lee Elder said during Black History Month unless you read this today, February 29, 2008. With all that could have been said this month but was not, all that needed to be said this month but was never spoken, what was said this month and not a second too late, we all need to - ’say it loud.
…thank goodness for leap year.’
Comments
11 Responses to “Thank Goodness for Leap Year”
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Nice piece dwill. Instructive in how the media machine constantly manipulates our thought process through omission as well as the normal mind control methods.
Nice piece!
Thanks sankofa….
my son wants to take up golf; i’m pretty conflicted about it. at some point we all take our lumps; i just don’t want him to take any extra, both physically and metaphorically.
nice piece.
dee-
Thanks. Golf is an exacting game. I feel it’s a great game, too and hope you encourage your son to play despite the “crap” he might take. It’s no different than the crap he’d have to face if he played tennis. That seems to be part and parcel with individual sports. - the are all awfully white, so when black people pop up on the scene there is always resentment.
And, of course, that particular program with Elder is on in its entirety while I’m at work….
I can’t say much else except “very well written,” D.
Phew, there’s another Kelly Tilghman picture. Just kidding, D-Wil, you know my running joke on that by now.
Seriously, though, good point about Q-school. This also bothers me sometimes about the fees students have to pay to apply for college, take standardized tests, and otherwise prepare themselves. Those fees are only a few hundred dollars now, and thankfully have fallen in the last few years, but that used to be more of a barrier than people think.
Using my business knowledge, the Q-school fees represent a definite barrier to entry for new entrants into the golf industry–specifically, the poor. There’s no question about it. Now, whether that was explictly designed to be racist is another story altogeher, but there’s no question that the effect is discrimination against poorer golfers.
mc-
See, with institutions like Q School… I’d guess that no one specifically thought, “Ooooo, a way to keep out black golfers!” But once it becomes an institution and you see the results - if you maintain the institution, it is racist. If discontinued, or altered so as to be inclusive, then there’s no problem…
S2N-
Thank you.
Economic racism is a pathetic myth perpetuated by blacks too lazy to save their money or make sound financial decisions.
As for the program on ESPN, you should just be happied they put their money in it and aired it. As for the CIAA tourny, its not shown on the big boy ESPN network because its not going to get ratings. If it got big numbers I’m sure it would be on ESPN 1 or 2, but it has to make dollars and again, its not ESPN’s job to have to show the CIAA tourny anyways.
As for the beating of the Tilghman horse, give it a break already. Its so old now. No one cares if you managed to drag up a guy who finally agrees with what you have to say. The fact is regardless of who agrees with you, it could the the Pope or the President or whoever, lynch is not an inherrently racist word, Period. if you listended to the lead up to the phrase the word lynch fits in perfectly with what the guy was saying. It is extremely funny how some blacks try to cry about every thing in the world and always act like a victim. It is sad.
Hey David Mac, good to see you don’t change.
I’m as a “black” you don’t have a problem with the word lynch. Shit, I’m pretty sure you would find a way to excuse a white person using the word nigger.
Good day.
David Mac,
I feel sorry for people that actually have to know you in real life. You’re a pathetic excuse for a man. Racism was fine when it worked for people like you back in the day, now there’s a Black History Month and the world is topsy-turvy?
People like you recommend a base negativity that I find odious. I hope that you find religion and turn over a new leaf. I’m going to pray. Pray that I never meet a person like you.
I’m glad Black History Month is over, so I don’t have to read posts like yours and most ESPN commenters on an article on race in this country. It’s really quite sad.
Great piece dwil. I didn’t know about the caddies or the Q-school until now. Very unfortunate…