Tiger’s Troubles Widen His Distance From Blacks
‘Two layers of suspicion ... one is the pattern in the race of his partners’
The article that followed labeled the golfer racist not only for "declin[ing] to identify himself as black," but also because of "the race of the women" he's involved with.
On top of this, the AP made the case that America's fascination with Woods's philandering is only because he's cheating with white women (h/t NB reader Matthew Noll):
Amid all the headlines generated by Tiger Woods' troubles — the puzzling car accident, the suggestions of marital turmoil and multiple mistresses — little attention has been given to the race of the women linked with the world's greatest golfer.
Except in the black community.
When three white women were said to be romantically involved with Woods in addition to his blonde, Swedish wife, blogs, airwaves and barbershops started humming, and Woods' already tenuous standing among many blacks took a beating.
The article continued with this theme:
As one blogger, Robert Paul Reyes, wrote: "If Tiger Woods had cheated on his gorgeous white wife with black women, the golfing great's accident would have been barely a blip in the blogosphere."
Wow! So America is also racist because we're only interested in this story due to the color of Woods's mistresses.
But it gets worse:
The darts reflect blacks' resistance to interracial romance. They also are a reflection of discomfort with a man who has smashed barriers in one of America's whitest sports and assumed the mantle of the world's most famous athlete, once worn by Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan.
But Woods has declined to identify himself as black, and famously chose the term "Cablinasian" (Caucasian, black, Indian and Asian) to describe the racial mixture he inherited from his African-American father and Thai mother.
So Woods is wrong for not considering himself black even though he is one quarter Chinese, one quarter Thai, one quarter African-American, one eighth American Indian, and one eighth Dutch?
But there was yet more racial absurdity in this piece:
This vexed some blacks, but it hasn't stopped them from claiming Woods as one of their own. Or from disapproving of his marriage to Elin Nordegren, despite blacks' historical fight against white racist opponents of mixed marriage.
So, blacks have historically fought against "white racist opponents of mixed marriage":
"But at the same time we still see him as a black man with a white woman, and it makes a difference," said Johnson Cooper, a 26-year-old African-American from New York City. "There's just this preservation thing we have among one another. We like to see each other with each other."
Wow! So, on the one hand, blacks have fought against "white racist opponents of mixed marriage." BUT, they're against black men marrying white women.
Not only did the AP miss this hypocrisy, it actually defended it:
This tendency may be more prominent due to a relative lack of interracial marriages among average blacks. Although a recent Pew poll showed that 94 percent of blacks say it's all right for blacks and whites to date, a study published this year in Sociological Quarterly showed that blacks are less likely to actually date outside their race than are other groups."There is a call for loyalty that is stronger in some ways than in other racial communities," said the author of the study, George Yancey, a sociology professor at the University of North Texas and author of the book "Just Don't Marry One."
The color of one's companion has long been a major measure of "blackness" — which is a big reason why the biracial Barack Obama was able to fend off early questions about his black authenticity.
"Had Barack had a white wife, I would have thought twice about voting for him," Johnson Cooper said.
So do Woods' women say something about the intensely private golfer's views on race?
"I would like to say no, but I think it garners a bit of a yes," Johnson Cooper said.
Wow!
So if Michelle Obama was white, blacks wouldn't have voted for her husband?
Somehow the AP missed this racist hypocrisy as well.
Add it all up, and Woods is racist for cheating with white women, Americans are racist because they wouldn't be interested in this story if his mistresses were black, and it's okay for blacks to resent black men that are involved with white women.
Any questions?
