What was she thinking?
So everyone's probably heard or read about Kelly Tilghman's commentary on how young players can challenge Tiger Woods' dominance in golf. To refresh your memory, Ms. Tilghman (who is white and female) said, that they should "lynch him in a back alley." Within the context of the conversation, the idea of physically beating up on Tiger because beating him on the green is impossible is pretty amusing and if Tilghman had chosen a different verb, say a simple "beat" or if more colorful language is required, maybe "fuck up", then we wouldn't be parsing her statement.
But Tilghman didn't choose any of those words. She used the word lynch. Any person, who has lived in the US for more than 3 years and is familiar with the English language, is aware of the cultural baggage that word carries, down to your garden-variety KKK member. I personally wouldn't use those word combinations unless I were discussing specific topics.
So, why use that word? Faldo (Tilghman's co-host) talked about "ganging up" on Tiger and I suppose she might have felt the need to make a more outrageous comparison in order to highlight the futility of challenging Tiger. Still, I always come back to why she selected that word.
Could she be ignorant of the implications behind the word? Possible, but I wouldn't expect that of a person who attended Duke University.
Perhaps she was blind to Tiger's racial identity, seeing him as essentially white because of his personality, his sport, his family? If the word lynch was used (figuratively) when referring to a white person, it would generate the kind of negative attention we're seeing now. However, this excuse (and I'm not saying that she was thinking this) doesn't really do her any favors. Racial blindness (where the default state is white) is not the solution to racism.
So what did Tiger have to say about all this? It's a non-issue for him, which is quite generous. He could have made life much harder for her if he'd taken offense.
I suppose we should all wait for the Today Show//Good Morning America/Larry King/Oprah interview in which Tilghman sorrowfully explains what she was thinking and how she's expanded her volunteer commitments to address racism/discrimination/economic disparity/insert issue of the day here.
But Tilghman didn't choose any of those words. She used the word lynch. Any person, who has lived in the US for more than 3 years and is familiar with the English language, is aware of the cultural baggage that word carries, down to your garden-variety KKK member. I personally wouldn't use those word combinations unless I were discussing specific topics.
So, why use that word? Faldo (Tilghman's co-host) talked about "ganging up" on Tiger and I suppose she might have felt the need to make a more outrageous comparison in order to highlight the futility of challenging Tiger. Still, I always come back to why she selected that word.
Could she be ignorant of the implications behind the word? Possible, but I wouldn't expect that of a person who attended Duke University.
Perhaps she was blind to Tiger's racial identity, seeing him as essentially white because of his personality, his sport, his family? If the word lynch was used (figuratively) when referring to a white person, it would generate the kind of negative attention we're seeing now. However, this excuse (and I'm not saying that she was thinking this) doesn't really do her any favors. Racial blindness (where the default state is white) is not the solution to racism.
So what did Tiger have to say about all this? It's a non-issue for him, which is quite generous. He could have made life much harder for her if he'd taken offense.
I suppose we should all wait for the Today Show//Good Morning America/Larry King/Oprah interview in which Tilghman sorrowfully explains what she was thinking and how she's expanded her volunteer commitments to address racism/discrimination/economic disparity/insert issue of the day here.