GolfWeek's noose cover the latest attempt to prove golf elitest and racist

Above is the cover GolfWeek Magazine chose to illustrate the Kelly Tilghman “lynch Tiger in the back alley” comment, in all its cute “play on words” glory. The cover goes along with a pathetic story by Senior Writer Scott Hamilton that does little more than recap the situation, and throw in a comment by a noted African-American, apparently in an effort to say “no biggie.”

“Accept the apology and move on. We all say dumb things,” said Dr. Harry Edwards, a consultant of the San Francisco 49ers and a sociology professor at the University of California-Berkeley.

Tacked on to that, is an editorial that tries to prove why the “lynch” story is actual golf news:

“It was a costly ’slip of the tongue,’ an innocent mistake that, judging by user commentary on Golfweek.com, a majority of Golfweek readers believe didn’t merit the punishment. Outside the microcosm of golf, however, the public isn’t so forgiving.”

The editors of GolfWeek couldn’t have explained it any better. The “microcosm of golf.” Golf, as they see it, isn’t part of society or the public as a whole. It is it’s own entity, apparently. Mainly, this is all Al Sharpton’s fault for making an issue of it. If he would just leave golf alone, they could be a racist as they want to be.

We are yet three weeks into 2008, but in that short time, mainstream golf has gone out of its way to show just how out of touch they are with the African-American society, and society in general.

If GolfWeek had done some type of hard-hitting expose on racism and golf, perhaps the noose cover would have made sense. But with the story being little more than a tossed-together rehash of the Tilghman situation, the front imagery leapfrogs Tilghman’s remarks as a grand sign of just how out of touch GolfWeek is, and what little respect they have for their African-American readership.

Because while the editors of GolfWeek see the cover as a “grabby” way to sell magazines, many others see the cover and are reminded of things much deeper and more horrifying.

The United States is not such an advanced and enlightened society. We are much closer to our past when lynchings and overt racism was acceptable behavior, rather than a colorblind future.

Tilghman’s remark was callous and insensitive. But the claim of “slip of the tongue” could at least be given some credence. GolfWeek has no such claim. It was their thought-out, editorial decision to run this photo as a play on words along a meaningless story, and a more meaningless editorial.

And if everyone from GolfWeek emerges from this with their jobs intact, it will be yet another sign of just how little respect they have for African-Americans, and American society as a whole.

–WKW