If you didn't watch the Golf Channel last Friday—what, you missed it?—you missed analyst Kelly Tilghman's comment in a discussion of who, if any, golfers might be able to challenge Tiger Woods on a consistent basis. Her answer was basically that nobody can, unless they "gang up" on him and "lynch him in a back alley."
Bad idea, because if he's lynched, then who gets his drinking fountain?
The reaction involved people like Al Sharpton to call for her termination from the Golf Channel. Evidently Tilghman and Woods have been friends for 12 years, and Woods' agent said the whole debacle was "case closed." Factoring all this in, Tilghman was ultimately suspended for two weeks. That's about right. I wrote a bonehead column in college and got the same penalty.
Then again, a two-week suspension for a golf commentator in January is like telling a Christmas tree salesman "don't bother showing up to work in April."
While I've always thought it's silly to complain about one line of a telecast featuring a person one never heard about on a channel one doesn't even watch, it's slightly refreshing to know an issue such as this one didn't drag on and on like Don Imus's comment about Rutgers basketball or Michael Irvin's "Tony Romo must have a black ancestor" line. It also helped that the Golf Channel reacted swiftly and actually handed down a suspension five days after the comment, while it took CBS Radio over a week to cancel Imus in the Morning and Irvin stayed with ESPN until the end of the season.
There is one other reason, potentially damaging to my reputation if I mention it, but I might as well let go of any potential shame and say it. Kelly Tilghman didn't know any better, because she is a woman with a small brain. A brain the third the size of ours. It's science. Also, she's rather hot. There, I said it.
But actually, what Tilghman really did wrong was tell the joke to the wrong audience. My own dark, off-color humor has no place in my grandparents' house, or in my newspaper column. And I'm not about to tell that Bison Dele joke on network television any time soon. Of course, the concept of lynching a black man is one of those lines in which you have to look over your shoulder twice before telling in a restaurant, so to drop that line on The Golf Channel takes ovaries of epic proportions. And now she's paying the fair penalty, but at least this gives her plenty of time to, oh I don't know, bake delicious pies and let them cool on the windowsill.
Article comments
1 - Chris Bancells
A lynching joke? Really? She could have left at dragging him into a back alley, but noooooo! She could have picked some other form of mock-violence. Dragged out into the street and shot? Pushed in front of a bus? Shoved squirrels in his...never mind. Anyway, even if you use it about a white golfer, it's still offensive. This woman must have the social awareness of a banana slug.
2 - Matthew T. Sussman
Squirrel torture is the worst. I wholeheartedly recommend it.
Good point about if it's a white golfer. For what it's worth -- now keep in mind she's a seasoned Golf Channel commmentator, and has been doing this for more than 2 months -- last week on Treehouse Fort I said that after Sean Taylor's funeral, the Washington Redskins "were left for dead." I knew the idea I was trying to convey, but the wording came out all wrong.
So I wonder if Tilghman was just trying to convey that there's no way to beat Tiger Woods in golf, so beating him up is the only way you can win.
3 - Dr Dreadful
"The Only Way To Get Kelly Tilghman Off The Air Is To Get Her Pregnant"
Well, so far that hasn't worked with Kelly Ripa.
4 - Donnie F.
Where is the Asian community on this? Isn't Tiger half Korean? This whole situation has nothing to do with racism. It has everything to do with Al Sharpton using whatever lame tool he can find to stir up crap and keep his name in the limelight. To suggest that this woman should lose her job over this is absolutely ridiculous. Comparing this to the Don Imus is apples and oranges. Come on, people!!!
5 - Matthew T. Sussman
"Where is the Asian community on this? Isn't Tiger half Korean? "
The Cablinasian community is slowly but surely working on a press release. Tilghman is opposed to Woods being forced to build railroads.
"Comparing this to the Don Imus is apples and oranges"
Because one's a fruit, and the other's .... I never did quite understand that idiom.
6 - BGP
Michael Wilbon on PTI on ESPN said that he's known her for quite a while and that he considers hert to be a good friend...Personally I think that she just used bad terminology....It wasn't intentionally racist or ill willed...More of a case of engaging one's mouth before engaging one's brain....If Tiger and his staff are good with it,and Wilbon is good with it (her apology),then I'm good with it as well...I think that her suspension had more to do with with the Golf Channel being painted in a corner about this more than anything else..We all make mistakes and learn from them...She will as well...Oh,by the way..I'm black,LOL!!!
7 - Tuffy
Are we sure she didn't suggest other golfers convince Tiger to attend a David Lynch film festival to upset his mental toughness? Just checking.
8 - Chris Bancells
I don't think she was intentionally being a racist or mean either. HOWEVER, she is getting paid to talk and needs to be in control of the words leaving her mouth. It's like getting a foul in sports. When a soccer player makes a bad tackle, he may not have meant to jam his studs into the other player's ankle, but professional athletes are expected to have a certain level of control over their bodies. When they lose control, they are penalized.
9 - Hairynipples
Where is the Asian community on this? Isn't Tiger half Korean? "
I thought Tiger was part Thai? That opens a whole other pot to stir, no?
10 - Alexandria
"This woman must have the social awareness of a banana slug."
I've never even heard of a banana slug but I agree. My dog knows better.
I once said, "We're working like slaves over here" and in no way intended to offend anyone.....but I did. I think everyone knew what I meant, and that I wasn't implying anything racist, but the bottom line is that I offended someone and I felt bad. But then again, I'm entitled to screw up because I don't get paid to comment on an historically mostly white male sport. Not a real good time/place to use a lynching party analogy.
11 - Alpha Wolf
Tiger Woods is part Thai (his mother Tida is Thai), African-American, American-Indian and Caucasian.
He refers to himself as "Cablinasian" and bristles at the suggestion that he is black. In a Golf Channel retrospect on his early career aired over "Tiger Week" around New Year's, he said that to call him only black angered him because "it really disrespects my Mother and her heritage."
12 - Jason
What stuck out to me more about this incident is that this is a woman making these comment; which shocked some of my friends, despite that I am also black and freelance in the sports media biz. So I'm not crazy to believe that while she's not getting a free pass, per se, the fact that she's a pretty face has tempered the storm that comes from some folks that usually react to these situations. I hope I'm wrong or at least not seeing enough of the reactions.
Wait, who HAS the Golf Channel?
13 - stuntman
She apologized for her comments so let it go. Al Sharpton was on a morning show running his mouth just get on TV.
14 - Lonon Smith
Yeah, pregnant'll work. Face it, this is a white chick working in a game that until last Tuesday essentially thought of black people as ... what's that word? Oh, yeah, caddies!!! If y'all were to dig back into the past of a whole lot of pro golfers, that idea of lynching might not have seemed so out of line to grandpa.