Tiger Woods comment impacts Dr. Martin Luther King birthday
Written by Michael Vass
With all the news on politics of late, little has been mentioned today about Dr. Martin Luther King. Equally little has been mentioned about events that slap the face of what Dr. Martin Luther King stood for, strived to do, and the day is meant to commemorate. Some of those events include the actions against Wesley Snipes (as I have been able to discern), the inference to the death of Tiger Woods, and the attacks on Senator Barack Obama.
I’ve already discussed Mr. Snipes, and to a degree Senator Obama. So I will start with DR. Martin Luther King. Since the death of Dr. King 2 days before I was born, there have been calls for a way to commemorate his life and life goal of racial equality in America. In 1986, after years of fights against the idea Dr. King became the first and only African American to have a federal holiday. Of course unlike most Federal holidays, virtually everyone has to work on this day, and it replaced an already existing holiday in 27 states (which helped get the day passed into law). Sadly more people enjoy a day off on Columbus Day than this one.
For those that are not old enough to realize it, one of the major reasons that there is a holiday today is because for over a decade the day before Election Day was a day that a majority of African Americans would take off. Kids did not go to school, nothing was bought in stores (big ticket items), adults were always sick. It was a social outcry that is unmatched today. And even with that statement, it took 18 years for many states to finally accept the day, though many ignored the holiday completely. All this in just my lifetime to date.
My point is that such willful ignorance of racial imbalance, and disrespect of an honorable and courageous man does not go away in a handful of years. It has gotten better, but to believe it is gone is ignorant and foolish in my opinion.
Which brings me to the comments against Tiger Woods. As some are aware during the recent Mercedes-Benz Championship tournament Kelly Tilghman, an announcer for the Golf Channel, suggested that Tiger Woods be lynched. The conversation surrounding that comment was in terms of what could be done by up-coming players to take on Tiger. One announcer suggested they gang up on Tiger, to which Ms. Tilghman stated
Not knock him out. Not tie him down. She stated calmly, kill him in a brutal and public manner because he is Black (no matter how Tiger describes his racial history) on national cable programming. No matter how it may be excused, or what she wanted to convey, that is what she said.
The definition of lynching is –
What a lynching is pertains more to the social and mental status it has in America than anything else. The Tuskeegee Institute records of lynchings between the years 1880 and 1951 show 3437 African-American victims, that is what is recorded. The worst recorded lynching was The Colfax Massacre where 280 African Americans in Colfax, Louisiana in 1873 were killed. Lynchings were glorified in film in the movie The Birth of a Nation.
By the way, it was illegal to commit a lynching since 1922 (after 7 years of trying to pass Congress), a mere 85 years ago. There are people in this nation that committed, watched, and taught their children the sick value of a lynching alive today. This is by no means an act of the past. And while the Tuskeegee Institute may have stopped recording events, accussations of lynchings have occurred as recently as 10 years ago if my memory is correct.
This is what Ms. Tilghman was talking about. This is what she passingly decreed on Tiger Woods.
Now imagine this. If a Black announcer on a national cable channel was discussing the potential for Senator Hillary Clinton to be elected. If one of the commentators mentioned that perhaps the only way to stop the woman was to haul her off the stage, and that Black man said ‘Rape her in the back room’ what would have happened?
Everything would have stopped on a dime, and that announcer/commentator removed from the program and fired. That is the least of the outrage that would happen. But to call for the vicious murder of Tiger Woods is a nothing.
What does that say about the state of America. What does that mean on Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday and the 22nd anniversary of the holiday?
The mere fact that such a word and context could pop into her head without though shows exactly how far America has really gone. And that’s not nearly as far as we all would like to imagine.
Dr. Martin Luther King once spoke of a Dream, and as the arguably greatest golfer in the world can now attest to there is still a long way before the dream is a reality. As the recent racial attacks on Senator Obama proves, there is still a fear and refusal of some to have
We may have a holiday, that some get to enjoy, but I’d rather have the dream and a golf game without a call for lynching.
**I want to thank DeWayne Wickham for his comments in USAToday.com that allowed me to get the quote and link for the full speech of Senator “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman. The full speech can be found here.**
January 28th, 2008 at 2:47 am
Well I was very dissapointed in Mr . Woods as well, however I dont feel as if he was any less aware of history then my on 24 year old Son who told me”things arent like that anymore”. I was hoping that the events in Jena,La and related events would open his mind and his eyes but our children have been denied their history by the public(Program) schools. The first book I completed as a child was, Before The Mayflower. My Parents were not educated beyond the 8th grade but they tryed to make me aware of were we came from. I was a fan of Mr.Woods up until he had the chance to Man -UP, that comment was his( IN) up until then I had given him a pass, thought the reason he didnt say anything after the comments after he won th first Masters was only politics. But now he seems to be another Larry Elder, Jesse Lee Peterson etc… My only sports heros are the two brothers who stood proud, fist in the air at the olympics in 68.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Written by Michael Vass
OG,
First I want to thank you for your response.
While I share your disappointment over the lack of response by Tiger Woods I do understand part of the reasoning. I don’t agree with it but I understand it. As a businessman, Tiger felt that taking on the issue would impede his status in golf and thus interfere with his ability to create and fund programs that target young people of color. I believe that he could have been forceful in his comments and still maintained his stature.
But the grander issue is that the major media was allowed to passingly review this event. That was possible because so many are willing to say, ‘it’s not meant like that’. That so many are willing and actively excuse the obvious and direct racial insults made in their face.
Change cannot happen if we sit back and excuse the slap in our face. If we allow our children to accept comments and actions that their parents and grand-parents would never let pass. A mere 43 years ago Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, the Black Panthers and so many other individuals and groups endured fire hoses, police dogs, beatings, and murder to change the perception that people of color are in any way unequal to anyone else. Today we see a passive and persistent slide back into the patterns that existed before the Civil Rights Movement.
And it’s not the fault of the school system, which we all know is inadequate. The history of Blacks was about 1 paragraph when I was in school over 30 years ago, and increased to about a page when my youngest sister was in school about 15 years ago. But I would ask this of all the readers here, what books did you give your kids about Black History?
OG, you mention that your first book was Before The Mayflower, what was your 24 year old son’s first book? What might you imagine was Tiger’s? I’m not pointing a finger, I’m asking a question of us all. What are we in this generation doing to preserve our history, and what are we doing to confront the slide back to a time when African Americans were considered negroes and 2nd class?
That was the opportunity that was missed in this Tilghman/Woods commentary. That needed to be addressed, and confronted. Because just remembering the 1968 Olympics is not enough. Ask most 20-something’s and they have no idea what happened in the ’68 Olympics. We need to share that, and remind them that casually calling for a lynching is the first step to having a lynching.
Tiger was wrong, and so was the media. But perhaps worse was the fact that so few spoke about this and said anything.