Posted by
flagwaver on Sunday, January 27, 2008 1:18:34 PM
On the heels of the unfortunate words spoken by Golf TV analyst Kelly Tilghman, the most popular player in golf finds himself in the midst of a race relations storm. Tiger Woods, welcome to the world of race relations in 2008, where no matter what you do you are going to take hits.
Tiger Woods finds himself in the same position that Michael Jordan found himself in during the 1998s and 1990s; stuck in the middle of blacks who are angry that he doesn’t feel the same way they do and a public that simply wants him to keep entertaining us. With Michael Jordan the problem came when he was asked why he did not endorse black Democrat Harvey Gantt in his election fight against Southern iconoclast Jesse Helms in the race for US Senate; Jordan famously answered, “Because Republicans buy sneakers too.” That comment had black activists up in arms that Michael Jordan was not standing up and doing more to “help” blacks or was not more politically active in his public life; likewise, Tiger Woods decision not to publicly castigate Ms. Tilghman for her lynching comment has many of the same voices making the same types of statements about Tiger.
The thing with this though, is that these people actively ignored what Michael Jordan did behind the scenes with his charitable foundation, and they are discounting what Tiger Woods is doing with his charitable foundation as well. They have seemingly come to the conclusion that attempting to impact the entire community is less important than making some symbolic gesture to the black community. Personally, I think that attitude is total hogwash!
All of those “black activists” that are after Tiger Woods right now, including NFL legend Jim Brown need to step back and leave the man alone. They are not really concerned that Tiger is doing anything wrong, they are concerned that Tiger is not doing what they want him to. Honestly, why else would they be on someone’s back who forgave a personal friend for a slight that was his alone? I’ll tell you why, it is because by doing that Tiger is basically saying that he is moving beyond race in his dealings with people and attempting to deal with each person as an individual. And we all know that “black activists” will go out of business the day we all start to make those decisions in our daily lives. Booker T. Washington had it right when he said that those who stir up racial divisions usually do so for their own benefit.
So as the debate about what Tiger should have done continues to rage, take a moment to reflect on whom is right here. Is it the man who forgave the insult or the men who refuse to let it go?