I apologize to anyone who may have been offended by my previous post. I will try again to address the Kelly/lynching comments in a more civil manner.
1. Kelly seems to have forgotten she was “on the air.”
2. You can’t make a “let’s lynch the black guy in the alley” comment without revealing at least a subconscious awareness that lynching black guys was a preferred method of action against blacks in particular “back in the day.”
3. The comment and apology to Tiger does not address the issue at all.
4. Of course, Tiger, being the gentleman and friend that he is would forgive her, and frankly, I don’t think he would personalize it.
5. The comment reflects a larger insensitivity from both Tilghman and the Golf Channel.
6. Rather than saying the apology ends it, she should have been suspended for a month immediately, rather than a two week vacation that only came on the heels of news covering the comments.
7. God help the Golf Channel with Al Sharpton in the hunt for Kelly’s head. It almost makes me sympathetic to her current plight.
8. I REALLY hate to see Tiger get dragged into this mess, as he has always done his best to present himself in a colorblind manner. Now, we all know that when he first came on Tour, there were those that thought he should address the “racial divide” in this country, and in a way he has, by being a master of his game and setting a wonderful example as a role model; as an athlete, as a person, as a son, and now as a father, race be damned.
9. Imus had many many years of broadcasting, and ALOT of friends in high places, and he still had to go to the woodshed for months to live down his comments.
10. Kelly has only had the anchor chair for a year, and this “mistake” isn’t going to go away quietly. Thank you You Tube, the comment will live forever. I think my first impulse if I saw her at a cocktail party would be to pull an imaginary rope up past my ear and jerk my head, but that would probably be insensitive.
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Just to make sure its clear, the word lynch refered to Hispanics in some areas Blacks in others Irish at times Jews at other times and has been around a long time. Just because a wave of lynchings directed towards black people occured in the southern united states in the last century does not give black people the right to claim that word as their own to define as they see fit or worse yet to use as an excuse to then practice there own misdirected revenge oriented racism.
This women used the term in a poor context, but it was not racist. The attack upon her for being a white woman is absolutly racist. If she had been black it would be a different situation. That is racism, Al sharptons paycheck comes from the continued practice of it.
You either live in a cave with internet access, or you are prone to contrariness. Yes, lynching has a long a storied history as a means of mob justice regardless of the race of the victim. But, that doesn't excuse Kelly's unfortunate comment. Couple of points, if it wasn't a racially charged comment, why did she and the Golf Channel apologize? Clearly it was construed by many, if not most observers as such. And, it is an undeniable fact of our not so distant past, that lynching of black Americans was the most recent use of the deplorable practice. In fact, I cannot recall any recent Hispanics being lynched, but maybe it didn't make cable. Again, what I find most fascinating is that when Faldo said "gang up on Tiger," that her mind would conjure up a "lynching in an alley." A football metaphor would seem more likely, or a tag team wrestling match, but a lynching? All of this serves to demonstrate how deep within the white/black consciousness is a not so veiled connection between blacks and lynching. First, from her mouth into those watching, and secondly, by how it has been attacked so strongly. The fact that it took days for the Golf Channel to get their collective heads together rather than circle the wagons speaks volumes to just how out of touch with the "real" world they are. Also, of note from my view, is the notion that Kelly just didn't see the comment as a form of subconscious racism, since on the surface, from all accounts, she is NOT a racist. Therein lies the rub. One does not have be overtly racist to harbor racist stereotypes in their head. It is just that most of us, have learned to keep it to ourselves. Or in the case of The Dog bounty hunter, save his rants for privately recorded telephone calls.
Keep it civil, keep it on topic or I will continue to delete you. The debate is, whether Kelly's comments were racist or not and the Golf Channel's responsibility in this. To make a statement that one race over another is more racist is moronic at best. INDIVIDUALS are racist, not entire races. And if you call me an idiot again, I will ask that you be removed from posting.
Read what I posted again. I am sympathetic to a point with Kelly. It was a stupid, inappropriate comment, but at it's core it is racist, even as a joke. And since it was uttered over the pubic airways, it is not for Tiger to say, non-issue, since it is an insult to blacks in general. If you read the Golf Channel's mea culpa, they too admit as much. And you are right, Sharpton is a race hustler with way too much baggage in my opinion, and has no business as the "voice of moral authority" however, he is what he is, and when HE is on your case as he is now, you better come up with something better than, "May Have Offended" apologies. My point being that had the Golf Channel recognized it as a blatantly racist "joke" they could have avoided much of the damage by suspending her for a long enough period of time for the tempest in a teapot to blow past her. By leaving her on and saying she had apologized to Tiger as if that was all there was to it, was shortsighted and stupid. And a two week suspension simply is too short. Does anyone think that after two weeks and she comes back on the air, that everyone will have forgotten? Can you imagine how "careful" with her speech she might possibly become? She was almost unlisten-able as it was, even if she is not so bad to look at.
Grow up and let the whale know he's not fooling us.
Thank you
Curtis
2. This item DOES continue to be news because, unlike the previous offenders (Jimmy The Greek, Ben Wright, Don Imus), the perpetrator is a woman. America, flawed as it is, now waits to see how the drama plays out.
3. If EVER there was greater cause than this sad affair (within the realm of golf) to encourage children to learn and appreciate true and accurate use of language, I don't know of it.
This is just to tell you that I'll now boycott your blog just as I am Mario's, idiot.
Thank you.
Thanks for being the first blogger here to stand up to a repeated bully.
Cheers.
closed!
Al Sharpton [an FBI informer with overly-
processed hair] should be ignored
Why are there are those among us willing to bend over backwards to excuse ANYTHING at all, as long as Sharpton speaks out against it.
Kelly Tilghman is not some cross burning racist, but it's naive of us to really be looking for those today. Truly, she's a woman who committed a mistake on air & she should have apologized right away. made all this seem worse than it was. Her actions told me more about her qualifications than anything else. Had she mentioned putting a Japanese player in an internment camp I would still look at her askance. It's just DUMB.
Also, Thank you CB for expressing your opinion & not being daunted by the travelgolf bloggers who couch rude, racist & sometimes sexist feeling in being "ANTI-PC".
"he has always done his best to present himself in a colorblind manner. "
As much as i admire the person who doesnt drag race into everything, its impossible to be colorblind in America. We're just not meant to be that way, we're all different & we have a VERY strong American history to prove it. Tiger is his own man, makes his own decisions, and as the only Black golfer (or Coblinasian), everything seems to fall on HIS head, which isnt fair. But being colorblind isnt the answer, education is.