Date: Wednesday, December 09, 2009, 6:15 am
By: Tonyaa Weathersbee, BlackAmericaWeb.com
CLICK HERE for Photo Gallery: Tiger Woods – Off the Green
Oh, the irony.
For much of his 35 years, Tiger Woods has been setting golf records and shattering expectations. In 1997, he became the first person of color to win the Masters Tournament, and now, among other things, he holds a record number of career PGA wins.
Yet the more Woods rose in golf, the more distance he tried to put between himself and his blackness.
As black people everywhere celebrated Woods’ Masters triumph; as they saw him as the Jackie Robinson of a game that tends to be played in places where most blacks can only get in through the service entrance, Woods quickly spurned those accolades.
He told Oprah that it bothered him to be called black. Said, in fact, that he wasn’t black, but rather, Cablinasian – as in Caucasian-black-Indian-Asian.
Woods picked a bad time to toss the one-drop rule. Especially since it was because of the struggles of black people, and not whites, Indians or Asians, that made it possible for him to play on those country club courses rather than tend the grounds.
So it’s sort of ironic to see how Woods, the superstar golfer who worked so hard to not be seen as an achieving “black” man, could very well wind up being seen as a stereotypical one: As an oversexed brute who lusts after white women.
For the past two weeks, the Internet and the airwaves have been abuzz with news that the world’s greatest golfer is apparently one of the world’s worse husbands. Since Woods crashed his SUV in the wee morning hours on Nov. 27 in what appeared to be him trying to escape his golf club-wielding wife, Elin Nordegren, the bimbos have been erupting all over.
So far, 10 have surfaced.
Most have been hostesses or cocktail waitresses. Two are porn stars. Most had little else going for them except plastic, Barbie-doll looks and, it seems as far as Woods was concerned, accessibility.
And when Woods had sex with them, he did more than risk ruining his marriage and his endorsement-ready image.
He also risked reviving stereotypes about black men being slaves to their libidos.
Thirty-four-year-old Mindy Lawton, a waitress, claims that she and Woods had a year-long affair and that they had sex in various locations. She told The Daily Mail that Woods was “very well-endowed.”
Then there’s 24-year-old Jaime Grubbs, a Las Vegas cocktail waitress who somehow managed to hang on to all the cell phone and text messages between them; messages in which he told her that he would “wear her out.”
Rachel Uchitel, a club hostess, reportedly told friends that she and Woods had “wild Ambien sex.”
And now, T-shirts emblazoned with “Tiger Did Me” can be purchased on the Internet.
Sadly enough, those might sell even faster than the Nike gear that Woods is being paid millions to push – for now.
Woods predicament is a common tale about the wages of infidelity. Yet I wonder: Would Woods have hesitated to engage in serial adultery with a string of women with virtually nothing going for them except whiteness if he understood the stereotype?
Would a Woods who embraced racial pride instead of racial ambiguity be less inclined to risk being outed as yet another sexually reckless black man?
Perhaps.
It’s true that Woods eroded stereotypes simply by excelling at golf. It’s just too bad that he didn’t erode those stereotypes further by not racking up a string of white mistresses; women who are now spilling to the tabloids about the breadth of his lust and the length of his penis.
Because it’s a safe bet that right now, few people are seeing Woods as .....
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