Caging Tiger

So here it is a full two years, and yes, I am already posting again. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Carl, you can't possibly keep this pace up. I mean, one post every two years....Come on! Where do you find the time? Don't you need to sleep?" I realize that it is incredible, and I don't know, how long I'll be able to keep a pace like this up, so don't hold your breath for any posts in the future. I may need to rest and refill my passion bucket for blogging.

When I think of resting, I think of golf, and when I think of golf, I think of Tiger Woods. Or plaid pants. Or Caddyshack. Or that time my father-in-law almost killed me with an errant 3-iron. Now as interesting as any of those random associations my be, only one of them has been treated unfair in the sports media this week, and I'll give you a hint, it isn't plaid pants. No, Tiger has gotten a raw deal this week, and I feel the need to come to his aid, because as we all know, $100,000,000 in endorsements WILL NOT buy you friends.

In case you have been climbing Mt. Everest for the past month and haven't heard what went on, Tiger was playing in an event that was being covered on the Golf Channel. When asked what Tiger's fellow competitors needed to do in that event to beat Tiger, commentator Kelly Tilghman joked that they should probably lynch him in back alley. Now, in case you have been climbing Mt. Everest for the past 100 years and missed the whole Southern-USA-Racism-KKK thing, joking about lynching to a black person is similar to joking about the Holocaust with a Jew.

So Tilghman puts her foot, shin and thigh into her mouth, but her and Tiger are friends, and clearly her comments were not made in a malicious or racist manner. So Tiger calls the whole thing a non-issue and moves on. End of story, right?

You didn't really think that would be the end, did you? Racial leaders such as the Reverend (Reverend for what I don't know) Al Sharpton wanted Tilghman's head, and the drumbeat for punishment started to sound. The Golf Channel responded by suspending Tilghman for two weeks, and the issue actually looked as though it might ride off into the sunset. Just when we thought we were out of the woods, Golf Weekly ran an issue with a noose on the cover and threw some metaphorical gasoline on the metaphorical fire. Due to poor taste in covers, the editor of Golf Weekly was fired.

That brings us to the present, and the present angle that this story is taking. Basically Tiger has not responded except to say that this was a non-issue. This anti-inflammation has led some black journalists and leaders to come out against Tiger. Yes, you read that correctly, they are disappointed in Tiger to the point of saying assinine things like he is ashamed to be black, or that he doesn't want to make an issue of anything because he is afraid he may lose an endorsement. Now I realize that these people are paid to talk or write or rabble-rouse, and I also realize that most of them have severe cases of "Oral Diarrhea", but is Tiger the bad guy in this whole deal because he wasn't offended?

I think the most telling comment of this entire donkey-dance was one I heard this morning from a columnist from Sports Illustrated, who said that Tiger shouldn't see himself as the next Jack Nicklaus, but the next Jackie Robinson. It was after I heard this, and spit out an entire mouthful of coffee whilst trying to scream in anger, that I knew I must post.

Apparently the "Black Community" has decided that Tiger is going to be the standard bearer for Color in Sports, but unfortunately they didn't check with Tiger first. Now I understand the hardships black athletes have had to endure, and the racism that was and may continue to be present in the golf world, but does that mean that Tiger Woods HAS to be the Jackie Robinson of golf? Does Tiger not get to choose? What if Tiger simply wants to continue his historic career, raise his family, count his money and be left alone? Does he not get that option because some members of his race want to use him as a crowbar?

Or what if Tiger really wasn't offended. Tiger and Tilghman are friends and I would assume Tiger would understand the motivations behind those comments better than your average member of the press. Should Tiger have feigned outrage when he didn't really feel it? Should he have been mad for "the group", when he didn't feel it inside?

It was when I asked myself that question that I came to understand what was really going on. With the current liberal bias of our media, and in a nation where people are increasingly willing to define themselves by the "group" to which they belong, whether that group be Blacks or Hispanics or Muslims or whatever, Tiger Woods was supposed to be angry. The leaders of the group deemed that comment to be racist and therefore the group was supposed to be outraged.

The problem is that Tiger Woods is an individual. America was based on individualism and premise that anyone could be or do anything they wanted. People could define who they are, and not be defined by who their parents and grandparents were. People fled Europe by the millions for this promise, a promise that is fading in 21st Century America.

So essentially, if Tiger Woods would have came out and yelling and shaking his fists and demanding Kelly Tilghman's resignation, I would have supported that. He didn't. It's his choice. I support that, too. Nobody should have the right to force Tiger into any position he doesn't want to accept. Nobody has the right to put Tiger in a cage.

But that's just my opinion. What do you think?