The pain that results from you stubbing your toe occurs because of what’s in your toe – the tissue, the nerves – not the table leg you bumped; thus, the unresolved pain from Race/Racism resides within most Americans, too, but we try to place blame on the victim or avoid or ignore race. And it never goes away.
Why?
Because Mainstream America equates discussing racism with being called bad people, so dialogue is avoided. Everyone can accept a rape victim complaining, but few care about African Americans complaining about discrimination or victimization.
Tiger Woods, in a different way, is a reflection of our country’s issues with Race.
As a Black man, a group largely voiceless in the Mainstream Media, it’s somewhat amusing to me that Tiger, who always denies his Blackness, actually does enter the proverbial “club” and carry out the stereotypical, generations-old “Where da White women at” joke. Yes, it’s undeniable that Tiger has a thing for White Blondes. But even worse, I didn’t see any African Americans among his closest friends and employees at his press conference on February19th, 2010.
To deny who you are is to reject your parents. Tiger loves, but rejects his Black father, believing he is Beyond the Color Line because of his wealth and the fact that his mother is Asian.
In fact, I distinctly remember the self-proclaimed CABLASIAN wincing in agreement when Oprah suggested to him that he didn’t like being identified as Black, even though his dad was Black and society views him as such, for the most part. And obviously all or most among the 2.3 percent of people (about 7 million) who identified themselves as being of more than one race in recent census information feel the same
However, unfortunately, the media is focused on Tiger being a cheat or womanizer. But men and women will always cheat. And like Tiger says, his cheating is between him and his wife.
Some studies show that up to 55 percent of married women and 60 percent of married men cheat. Additionally, no one questions the morality of Tiger’s White mistresses, who are being treated like victims.
The mainstream media believes they are without sin and their White paternalism has victimized Tiger in the tradition of their vilifying Jack Johnson, Muhammed Ali, and Malcolm X, or Posterizing Black athletes for supposed bad behavior (see Bonds/steroids, Artest/fighting, Pac Man Jones/strip clubs, Michael Vick/dog-fighting, etc.). Whether Black men are causing White women to clutch their purses on elevators, or having their mugs plastered across the screen on the six o’clock news, or cannot get a taxi — the truth is the truth.
What’s strange is how Black people are often considered the most creative, blatantly honest people when it comes to music, sports, and real life. And all races even act out the “Dat’s right, you tell ‘em, girlfriend!” Black persona. However, when it comes to “Race” or speaking up about racism – Blacks are suddenly perceived as not knowing what in the H*% they are talking about.
Go figure?
What the mainstream media should be asking is why is Tiger rejecting Black beauty?
Black women, for example, have been complaining about Essence Magazine, the number one Black magazine, draping its February, 2010, cover with a shirtless Reggie Bush who’s dating the White Kim Kardashian.
Tiger has numerous issues. Even the iconic Jim Brown hammered Tiger for his alienating himself from the Black community and his reluctance to address race and other social problems.
The “deeper” aforementioned issues regarding Tiger and race are absent, partly, because the media still lacks diversity.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, African American television station owners declined 60 percent from 2006 to 2007 alone, and minorities, period, owned only about three percent of stations. Additionally, a 2009 American Society of News Editors census shows that the number of minority journalist is currently at about 6300, in the neighborhood of what it was in 1998.
But Blacks who are in the mainstream media are usually apprehensive about complaining about race. Even Barack Obama is terrified to bring up race.
Nonetheless, the United States minority population is huge and minorities will be the majority by 2042. So media “gate keepers” must be honest about their audience. Our society needs to mature and stop avoiding the issue of race, especially the most troubling aspect: the Black-White paradigm.
The bottom line: let’s stop making excuses, move beyond mediocrity and the Color Line, and diversify the voices in the media, especially when it comes to the voices of Black men.
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