Not even one black woman, Tiger?
Tiger Woods has been on the running shit list of some in the black community since he declared himself Cablinasian (white, black, Indian and Asian) during an appearance on “Oprah,” so few were disappointed when Tiger wed Elin Nordgren, a white woman, in 2004.
Black racialists were offended by Tiger’s perceived dis, but he is the offspring of two people from different “races,” his father, who was black (half-black, half American Indian and one-quarter white, actually) and his Asian (half-Thai, half-Chinese) mother. That makes him neither black nor Asian, but biracial.
I believe that in their heart of hearts, people who identify themselves as black know this to be true but, whether due to ignorance of their ancestors or a stubborn adherence to a rigidly dualistic view of race, recite the one-drop rule as if it’s a biological mandate. Tiger didn’t deny his blackness. He simply refused to be pigeonholed. I’d be willing to bet that if asked now, though, Tiger would refer to himself as multiracial, which is how he referred to President Barack Obama (himself half-black and half-white) prior to giving his speech at Obama’s inauguration, but here I drift afield.
The maelstrom of controversy swirling about Tiger is a result of his marital infidelity and, to a lesser extent, his behavior after driving his Escalade into a fire hydrant and his neighbor’s tree. That hasn’t stopped some people in the black community from using the revelations about Tiger’s extramarital trysts as an opportunity to get in some jabs about his apparent preference for white women and, of course, successful black men who don’t date black women.
“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?”
With due respect to Millner, why does she and women like her care? There are black men from various socioeconomic strata who go directly for nearest blonde (because all white women are blonde, right?), yes. And there are black men such as President Obama, Kenneth Chenault, Curtis Conway and Dr. Ben Carson, along with “average” black men who aren’t well-known who didn’t. Neither group cancels the other out or proves the other wrong, so can someone tell me why this scab has yet to heal?
I don’t know or care why Tiger, Julian Bond, Cornell West, Ph. D or Henry Louis Gates married white women any more than I know or care why Robin Thicke or Roger Ebert married black women.
But a headline I saw on the New York Daily News when reading about Tiger’s alleged fourth mistress, Core Rist, caught my attention: Tiger Woods alienates black community with white lovers. Is that so?
The people who care about Tiger’s penchant for white women aren’t alienated by the news that Tiger has cheated on his wife with … other white women. And though it probably wasn’t intentional, the headline as phrased suggests that the black community might view Tiger differently if he’d cheated on his wife with a black woman because, you know, infidelity is acceptable as long as you cheat with your own. Oh, and then there’s also the implication that the black community is a monolith that takes a vote on what to be offended by.
For my part, I’m disappointed that none of Tiger’s paramours are black not because I care one way or the other about his feelings for black women, but because I’m thinking that if I could show up at a country club or a night club and pull practically any woman I wanted to have, some of them would be the same black women I see now who don’t know I exist.
I’m not condoning cheating, but if Tiger was going to cheat anyway, I say he played himself by not sleeping with even one of black woman–whom we know of.
I also say that the people who still get worked up about who men other than family members –maybe– marry find another issue. It’s almost 2010, not 1910.