"Out from the kitchen to the bedroom to the hallway; Your friend apologizes, he could see it my way" -TMBG
I am firmly entrenched in the belief that things are out of hand when a TV personality on the Golf Channel is suspended, and her network is being threatened unless they fire her.
Al Sharpton, you are out of line on this one. With Don Imus you hit the nail right on the head, you were dead on balls accurate and look where it got you. Nowhere. Imus is still on the airwaves, he had a six month vacation on his ranch and now he is back and maybe a little wiser for his lesson. But Kelly Tilghman is not Don Imus; and to say that, "Lynching is not murder in general. It is not assault in general. It is a specific racial term that this woman should be held accountable for," the reverend said. "What she said is racist. Whether she's a racist -- whether she runs around at night making racist statements -- is immaterial." (as reported on the CNN.com article Tiger OK with 'lynch' remark, but Sharpton ready for battle)
But you are wrong. Originally the word Lynching referred to a Virginia justice of the peace who meted out harsher justice than was legal justifiable to... now wait for this... TORY SUPPORTERS! This is incredibly ironic to me that the first victims of lynching were probably white anglicans in the colonies.
Now I will not deny that when somebody says the word lynching I am immediately drawn to the image of burning crosses under magnolia trees and morons standing around in white robes. But that is the power of media and language. For a word to have its definition changed over time.
Is the concept of lynching specifically racist? No. You can ask the friends and relatives of Matthew Shepard, or James Maestas, both gay men who were lynched (one was white the other latino). I think and feel that lynching as an act occurs by definition when someone is killed by a mob for an offense without a trial. In the case of Shepard and Maestas being openly gay, in the context of Tilghman's comments being better at the game of golf than literally everybody who has ever played the game. But it isn't specifically racist, it is sometimes (or I will concede often) racist in the context of the 1960's and the south. But it changes where ever you go. I grew up in a region where cattle thieves were lynched.
What Sharpton is trying to do with this is to raise awareness (I imagine) and make people more aware of the words they are using and what they mean or how they are interpreted affects the message of what they are saying. I wonder if Tilghman had said, "If young players want to beat Tiger Woods in a PGA tour event a good place to start would be to take him out and beat the hell out him." If we would be having this big discussion. I don't think we would. I think it would have blown over, the twenty-five people that watch the Golf Channel would have nodded along at the dominance of the games greatest player; or maybe they would have been aghast at the open defiance towards the spirit of competition. But the key point is that we wouldn't be having a dialog.
Sharpton very specifically objects to the use of the word lynch. Which is just fucking stupid and it marginalizes the real issue of the "deep-seated" (should that be deep-seeded?) and "well cloaked" racism that IS very apparent in this country.
But seriously if we are going to be nit picky can we please get rid of the use of the "N-word" and yes I feel stupid typing that by everybody: white people, young people, dumb people, rappers, racists. Let's start there. The N-word should be banned forever from the parlance. And I wonder if all the people that marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. and that support the Rainbow Coalition and the National Action Network threw their full weight behind that if it would make a difference?
Because if Don Imus got rehired by a radio station for saying the girls basketball team at Rutgers were "nappy-headed hos" and nobody talks about it anymore; I am pretty sure that Kelly Tilghman, as bad as she feels right now, is going to fade back into the pleasant obscurity of televised golf.
Al Sharpton, you are out of line on this one. With Don Imus you hit the nail right on the head, you were dead on balls accurate and look where it got you. Nowhere. Imus is still on the airwaves, he had a six month vacation on his ranch and now he is back and maybe a little wiser for his lesson. But Kelly Tilghman is not Don Imus; and to say that, "Lynching is not murder in general. It is not assault in general. It is a specific racial term that this woman should be held accountable for," the reverend said. "What she said is racist. Whether she's a racist -- whether she runs around at night making racist statements -- is immaterial." (as reported on the CNN.com article Tiger OK with 'lynch' remark, but Sharpton ready for battle)
But you are wrong. Originally the word Lynching referred to a Virginia justice of the peace who meted out harsher justice than was legal justifiable to... now wait for this... TORY SUPPORTERS! This is incredibly ironic to me that the first victims of lynching were probably white anglicans in the colonies.
Now I will not deny that when somebody says the word lynching I am immediately drawn to the image of burning crosses under magnolia trees and morons standing around in white robes. But that is the power of media and language. For a word to have its definition changed over time.
Is the concept of lynching specifically racist? No. You can ask the friends and relatives of Matthew Shepard, or James Maestas, both gay men who were lynched (one was white the other latino). I think and feel that lynching as an act occurs by definition when someone is killed by a mob for an offense without a trial. In the case of Shepard and Maestas being openly gay, in the context of Tilghman's comments being better at the game of golf than literally everybody who has ever played the game. But it isn't specifically racist, it is sometimes (or I will concede often) racist in the context of the 1960's and the south. But it changes where ever you go. I grew up in a region where cattle thieves were lynched.
What Sharpton is trying to do with this is to raise awareness (I imagine) and make people more aware of the words they are using and what they mean or how they are interpreted affects the message of what they are saying. I wonder if Tilghman had said, "If young players want to beat Tiger Woods in a PGA tour event a good place to start would be to take him out and beat the hell out him." If we would be having this big discussion. I don't think we would. I think it would have blown over, the twenty-five people that watch the Golf Channel would have nodded along at the dominance of the games greatest player; or maybe they would have been aghast at the open defiance towards the spirit of competition. But the key point is that we wouldn't be having a dialog.
Sharpton very specifically objects to the use of the word lynch. Which is just fucking stupid and it marginalizes the real issue of the "deep-seated" (should that be deep-seeded?) and "well cloaked" racism that IS very apparent in this country.
But seriously if we are going to be nit picky can we please get rid of the use of the "N-word" and yes I feel stupid typing that by everybody: white people, young people, dumb people, rappers, racists. Let's start there. The N-word should be banned forever from the parlance. And I wonder if all the people that marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. and that support the Rainbow Coalition and the National Action Network threw their full weight behind that if it would make a difference?
Because if Don Imus got rehired by a radio station for saying the girls basketball team at Rutgers were "nappy-headed hos" and nobody talks about it anymore; I am pretty sure that Kelly Tilghman, as bad as she feels right now, is going to fade back into the pleasant obscurity of televised golf.
posted by V. at 9:47 AM
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