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Demonizing Tiger: Woods’ villification has racial overtones

People talk about Nike using Earl Woods’ voice out of context in an ad prior to the Masters. But is anyone grousing about the full-page family values ads now appearing in the major dailies featuring Phil Mickelson and his cancer-suffering  wife Amy? 

Talk about exploitation. Even better that Mickelson is white, the better to offset and polarize the whole situation in a way America can understand. i.e., Mickelson good, Tiger bad.

Bad Tiger! This is your punishment from the culture at large for being a selfish, amoral, pleasure seeking human being.

If you had been a bank, you could have received a bailout. But now it’s everyone’s turn to dis and dish.

This is one bandwagon I’m not hopping on.

Now they’re even commenting on how Tiger swears on the golf course (no secret).  Suddently golf and sport has gotten all puritanical and proper.  Does anyone get on baseball players for spitting? Howabout how basketball players handle their mouthguards, then high five each other. How unsanitary. Oh, and about that vigorous ass patting…

All of that is nothing compared to jumping on Tiger, the devil himself.

I hope Tiger recovers soon.

Consider the sexual proclivities of other public figures and how they’ve bounced back. After Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton is a revered world crisis solver. After biting women in secret hotel trysts, Marv Albert is back doing the NBA playoffs. (“YES!!”). After dumping his longtime wife in favor of a scandalous affair with a younger woman, newly divorced golf anchor Jim Nantz was there at the Masters with the call. 

Even David Letterman gets a light lashing after his intern trysts. Always good to have an extortionist come in and trump your bad hand. 

So comebacks do happen. But is there extra joy in dumping Tiger because Woods happens to be of mixed race?

He is at once the greatest black and Asian American golfer to ever play. He may be the greatest golfer period.  When he was good he was treated like royalty. But his indiscretions find him being treated with a whole let less compassion. He’s not a pariah yet. His golf game is too good. But the culture seems to be turning against him more so now that Mickelson can be the public face for the new Victorian era of golf.

Never mind Mickelson’s gambling habits. That’s an allowable vice, I guess.

But just ask yourself if Tiger would  be treated differently if he were white? 

   

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Pacquiao pounds Clottey, the anti-challenger, to win unanimously; Now he should quit and focus on his next opponent…the Philippine Oligarchy

The WBO Welterweight title  fight at Cowboys Stadium was suppose to be a real challenge: Manny Pacquiao against Joshua Clottey, a bigger, taller, stronger opponent, right?

But Pacquiao showed how easy it is to win a  fight when your opponent shows up but strategically decides not to fight back.

You simply throw more punches–like 830 more. 

It doesn’t matter if the punches don’t all land cleanly, or even knock out your opponent. There’s simply no way you can lose a fight if you outpunch your foe so convincingly that he seems cocooned for most of the fight.

In this 12-rounder, Clottey landed just 108 of 399 punches. That’s like a mild workout. Was his heart not in it? Or was he scared of Pacquiao who landed nearly 3 times more punches (296) out of a mindblowing 1,231 punches.

For every one Clottey punch, Pacquiao threw 3 more, often in a furious combination.

Clottey’s strategy appeared to be a modified “rope-a-dope,” a ropeless rope-a-dope, standing in the center of the ring, gloves and arms covering up body and face. If the intent was to let the Filipino punch himself out so that Clottey could emerge from his bunker-like state to knock out a tired Pacquiao, well that was just a uniquely dopey idea.  Call it the “Clottey.”  It didn’t work.

It did prevent Pacquiao from knocking out Clottey like he did Miguel Cotto or Ricky Hatton, both of whom went after Pacquiao aggressively and opened themselves up to Pacquiao’s tricky left hooks. But even as Clottey covered up, Pacquiao simply sidestepped and pounded away, scoring at will with body shots to Clottey’s ribs.  Clottey occasionally caught Pacquiao with an uppercut that caught  the champion’s chin,  but nothing Clottey did could stop Pacquiao from answering with a four or five punch combination.

I thought after seeing Clottey bloody Miguel Cotto last year that this would be a good compromise for fight fans who still hope to see Pacquiao take on Floyd Mayweather.

But Pacquiao is just too fast, too good, and too well conditioned. And now there’s really no one left to fight.

Pacquiao doesn’t need the money nor the challenge. And he doesn’t need the drama of more Mayweather fight negotiations.

Seems like a good time to retire, especially when you’re on top of the world.

Besides, Pacquiao’s already announced a challenge far greater than Floyd Mayweather– politics.

If Jim Bunning can be a U.S. Senator, why can’t Manny go to the Philippine legislature?  The election is in May, and if Pacquiao wins, it could be the first step for the People’s Champ in helping to restore Filipinos’ faith in their corrupt, dysfunctionalgovernment. (Even more corrupt and dysfunctional than the one we have in Washington, D.C.)

I like the politics idea more than Manny singing karaoke or doing hokey super hero movies in the Philippines. Pacquiao is the embodiment of “People Power.”  He’s no oligarch. He’s  a real self-made Filipino man, who rose from politics to be the most popular Filipino in the world since Imelda Marcos and Cory Aquino.

The question is whether he has the brain power to be more than a figurehead leader. He’ll have a fighting chance to prove his sincerity and passion to help the Philippines if he quits now. 

After 56 fights, enough’s enough. Now he needs to save himself for the real main event of his life.

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Tiger,the sexy Buddhist, has his Asian American moment; Mother Tida’s embrace is Woods’ public display of his “Asian-ness” and the start of the golfer’s personal and spiritual comeback

In the Year of the Tiger, a Tiger apology seemed a good reason for me to come out to play.
I admit after trying to watch some fat middle aged guys on TV trying to hit a white ball into a small hole , I am especially ready for Tiger to come back.
But now after seeing his controlled media statement, I’m convinced of his contrition.
I never bought a TW hat, a watch, or a product he pimped. But I bought his statement.
I’m responding to his plea. I have room in my heart to believe in him again.
Mostly what did it was his mother.
I can’t recall seeing Tida, Tiger’s Thai mom, ever being featured in any of the coverage since that fateful Thanksgiving night.
We needed to see her.
Perhaps there was a breakdown in the cameras that gave us that cutaway shot from the back for the latter part of his statement. But it was great because it made us see Tida.
In my published columns, I’ve said Tiger coming clean would have to be a toal spiritual reawakening.
I’ve said he should bypass the Sharptons and the Jesse Jacksons and embrace someone like Thich Nhat Hanh.
Maybe after Obama, maybe it’s Tiger who should check in with the Dalai Lama.
So it was heartening to see him acknowledge his Buddhism. During Tiger’s media void, Fox’s Brit Hume said Tiger should embrace Christ and essentially be born again. How missionary like of Hume. But Tiger did need to do something to recognize the source of his core values.
And now we’ve seen Tiger publicly declare how he was raised a Buddhist as a young boy by his mom and drifted away in recent years.
“I lost track of what I was taught,” Tiger said.
Tiger has rediscovered his roots.
That’s why the most important person in the room was his mother Tida, and her long loving embrace.
Whatever Tiger’s transgressions, it will be his Asian American side that will redeem him. 

And for those who consistently see him as black and black only (how many people like to refer to him as the first black this or that, while not recognizing he’s also the first Asian American in many cases?), perhaps now this public display of “Asian-ness” will show how Woods truly reflects a different, modern multicultural world.