I’m a white guy, so what the heck do I know? But, I agree with Ed Brayton, another white guy.
For those who don’t know about it, here’s what happened. A Golf Channel anchor named Kelly Tilghman was having a conversation on air with Nick Faldo about Tiger’s dominance and how the other players could stop him from winning. Faldo joked that nothing short of “ganging up” on him would work and Tilghman responded by saying that the only way to stop him is to “lynch him in a back alley.”
Tiger didn’t figure there was any racial intent behind the use of the word “lynch” and says he didn’t take any particular offense. The intent is clear – Tiger’s so good, if he makes it to the course, he’s going to win.
But, apparently there is a fair amount of commotion simply because the word “lynch” was used. The folks raising the commotion don’t seem to care that the speaker clearly didn’t mean the word with any racial connotations. Nor do they care that a listener wouldn’t reasonably understand the use to carry racial connotations. Apparently the mere sound of the word sufficiently justifies anger. Words aren’t magic. They only have such power as we give them. And let’s be clear here, this wasn’t a “dog whistle” situation where the speaker was saying something facially reasonable designed to convey something unreasonable to a certain constituency.
Most people are reasonable. If you tell them you don’t feel comfortable about a certain term, they’ll go with alternatives. For example, at some point, someone told me that “Oriental” was offensive and that, if situation called for such broad racial term, “Asian” was more appropriate. To this day, I can’t say I have a visceral understanding of why one and not the other. But neither is special to me, so if Asian is more polite, no skin off my nose to use it. Being polite is reason enough to do most things. I’ll bet if someone had said to this Golf Channel anchor, “Hey, it’s not cool to use the term “lynch” about a partially black person like Tiger;” it wouldn’t have happened again. Problem solved.
Instead, the Golf Channel suspended this person for two weeks and apparently Jim Brown is mad at Tiger for not getting mad enough. Or something. Getting angry is emotionally satisfying, I guess. But it’s not very productive most times. But, like I said, I’m just a white guy. Maybe I just don’t understand.
I don’t think she should have been fired, but you don’t get it, Doug. No offense. And what’s up with this “partially black” stuff? Is it okay to use the “N word” with someone who is only partially black. By the way, most of us are only partially black, if you get right down to it, so maybe we should never be offended by racial slurs and insensitive language.
If Tiger were a Jew and she had said take him to a chamber and gas him, would you think that was no big deal? Same principle. For a very long period of time, lynching was a deadly serious fact in this country resulting in the murders of hundreds of blacks. For a practice with that kind of history, it should not be hard to understand that many blacks would consider it out of bounds to joke about it in that fashion, and its not rocket science to think a reasonably intelligent white person would instinctively understand that. I don’t believe the anchor woman was racist, but certainly extremely insensitive and almost criminally clueless for someone who makes a living on tv. The partially black portion of your commentary I don’t understand. If Tiger were a criminal and robbed a bank, the APB would read “black male, six foot two inches, blah, blah. His biracial parentage notwithstanding, on any street in America, he is a black man. Thats just a fact.
It was just completely uncool and she should have known better. Its not a sensitivity thing either. If you look up the origin of the word “picnic”, you’ll find it has a pretty horrid racist pedigree. Black people however, don’t go batshit everytime that word is used and many blacks are familiar with its history. It was a bad episode and its just not that hard to see why.
I’m not going to say “nigger”* to anyone who doesn’t want me to use that word; white or black. Again, being polite is reason enough to avoid language that gives offense.
(The “N word” construct really bugs me for some reason. It seems like it helps give the word more power than it deserves. Kind of like in Harry Potter where everyone runs around refusing to say “Voldemort”)
The “partially black” bit was meant to highlight the artificiality of the word avoidance here. I’m not sure if you meant it this way, but if you go back far enough, we all have some “black” in us — if my understanding about the origins of the species homo sapiens is correct. So how black does one have to be before the word “lynch” automatically becomes offensive, regardless of the context, the intent of the speaker, or the perception of the listener?
I think the fatal flaw in your assumption here is that Americans have any real concept of history.
Aaron, great perspective.
Heads up: if a story sounds a little odd to you (origin of word “picnic” for me in this case) always check out Snopes.com. They do a great job of investigating (and often debunking) urban legends. I found several etymology sites that corroborated their findings.
If anyone is interested, I found a very interesting Yale article about lynching in North America.
I second Snopes as a great site. Completely off topic, but mention of Snopes reminded me of this video I saw yesterday. (The Internet Party: What Happens when Google’s Parents Leave Town).
Thanks to Brenda for the source of Snopes.com
I know piquenique is a common concept in France and it seemed reasonable to assume that it dated well before american lynchings in the South. I’ve been on family piqeniques in France and there it’s a real art form and culinary experience and is longstanding in the culture: plastic wine glasses with collapsible heads for easy storage in their special box,real linen and napkins,but used and reused only for picnics,collapsible tables and chairs and set in storage to be taken out for the next picnic.And of course nothing is ever used for other than what it was intended and that’s one aspect that sets off France from the USA.That’s not to say there weren’t American picnics in the South where lynchings occurred.
Sorry, Doug. I’ve been meaning to get back here for a couple of days. Believe it or not, the power went out due to a severe thunderstorm just as I was about to type a response here tonight.
Anyway, I truly meant no offense to you. I think that you are trying to understand, but the situation was pretty well summed up by Aaron. There was no reason for the announcer to use the word “lynch” period. It doesn’t matter how “black” Tiger is or considers himself to be. It doesn’t matter that the announcer probably had no racist intent. She should not have said the word. Anyway, “lynch” is not exactly a word that comes up in everyday conversation. The fact that the woman used the word at all does make me wonder why it came to her lips so readily. Honestly though, She may not be racist so much as being just plain ignorant. Again though, why did she say it? She could have said “kidnap” “knock him out” “trip him in the locker room” and a whole lot of other words or phrases other than “lynch.”
I wasn’t referring to the entire human race when I said we are all partially black. I meant that almost every American black person is only partially black. My father, may he rest in peace, was much lighter complexioned than Tiger. If the two of them stood next to each other, most people would have assumed that my father was a white person and that Tiger was black. My father was not white. He was the product of a long line of light-complexioned black people in his family, some of whom chose to pass for white years ago. (To his credit, my father did not do that, and never would have.)
I’m curious, Doug. How do you suppose that a listener wouldn’t reasonably understand Tilghman’s use of the word “lynch” to carry racial connotations? Maybe that is true for a white person. So, if I took offense at what Tilghman said, I’m being unreasonable? Sorry, but that’s not your call. Just because the word has no racial connotations for you–at least in the context that Tilghman used it–doesn’t mean that it doesn’t or shouldn’t have such a connotation to a black person. Words do have power, sometimes far beyond their dictionary definitions, because they are launched into a context. The history and experiences of both the speaker and the listener, the writer and the reader matter.
Aaron and Pila I couldn’t have said it better. I’m not saying he should be a spokesman for blacks. But what I have noticed and what some other black people seem to be perplexed/frustrated with is his somewhat denial of his black side. There’s a fine line between not wanting things to be defined by race and recognition of racial differences and acknowledgement that there is still racism. I too wonder what image in her mind would make her come up with lynch. If she were talking about Mickelson would she have imagined the same thing?
I don’t have a problem with Tiger Woods wanting to recognize his mother’s heritage, but I’ve always been a little amused by people who are several shades darker than my father (and sometimes several shades darker than I am) and who have at least one black parent saying that they aren’t black, they are fill-in-the-blank. Some people may think that this multiracial defining of self is a recent phenomenon. It isn’t. Aaron is right: If Tiger Woods robbed a bank, the witnesses wouldn’t say, “A cablasian man took the money and drove off in a Buick SUV.” They’d say, “A black man took the money and drove off in a Buick SUV.”
Back to Tilghman: Doug, she didn’t just say the word “lynch.” She used it in a sentence in reference to a black man: “They’d have to lynch him in a back alley” or some such. So it wasn’t the mere utterance of the word, but its use and reference to lynching a black man that offended people. I guess I’m not getting why you don’t get that. So Tilghman was joking. It was a bad joke and a stupid joke. Just because you weren’t offended by the joke, doesn’t mean that no one else could possibly be offended by it. Nor does it mean that your response is the reasonable one, while being offended is not reasonable. I luvs ya, Doug, but I very much disagree with you.