A blonde bombshell increases Tiger woe
By Jesse Washington |
December 8, 2009, Tuesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
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, that is, 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 and suffered a remorseless lampooning.
On the nationally syndicated Tom Joyner radio show, Woods was the butt of jokes all week.
"Thankfully, Tiger, you didn't marry a black woman. Because if a sister caught you running around with a bunch of white hoochie-mamas," one parody suggests in song, she would have castrated him.
"The Grinch's Theme Song" didn't stop there: 'The question everyone in America wants to ask you is, how many white women does one brother waaant?'"
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."
The darts 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 boxer Muhammad Ali and basketballer 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.
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.
Black women have long felt slighted by the tendency of famous black men to pair with white women, and many have a list of current transgressors at the ready.
"We've discussed this for years among black women," said Denene Millner, author of several books on black relationships. "Why is it when they get to this level ... they tend to go directly for the nearest blonde?"
Except, that is, 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 and suffered a remorseless lampooning.
On the nationally syndicated Tom Joyner radio show, Woods was the butt of jokes all week.
"Thankfully, Tiger, you didn't marry a black woman. Because if a sister caught you running around with a bunch of white hoochie-mamas," one parody suggests in song, she would have castrated him.
"The Grinch's Theme Song" didn't stop there: 'The question everyone in America wants to ask you is, how many white women does one brother waaant?'"
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."
The darts 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 boxer Muhammad Ali and basketballer 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.
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.
Black women have long felt slighted by the tendency of famous black men to pair with white women, and many have a list of current transgressors at the ready.
"We've discussed this for years among black women," said Denene Millner, author of several books on black relationships. "Why is it when they get to this level ... they tend to go directly for the nearest blonde?"
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