It seems fitting, on this Martin Luther King Day, that we publish a few of the many letters we've received on the Kelly Tilghman affair. To suggest that you're not in agreement on the matter is an understatement. To some of you it's just political correctness run amok. To others, a sober reminder of a vicious American past. These letters reflect that division. But before we get to the first, let me recommend a column by Michael Wilbon in the Washington Post. Michael hits it squarely on the head, as far as I'm concerned.
Many of you were sympathetic to those who applauded Tilghman's suspension and some of you to Pete McDaniel's column that demanded more. One was Robert Legg of Greensboro, Georgia:
Pete McDaniel asks us to let the word "lynch" linger in our minds and see the image it evokes. Having seen the Without Sanctuary exhibition I can tell you that it evokes far more than a poor soul hanging from a tree: The photographs of gleeful whites, men and women, looking on as though it was mere entertainment, are sickening. How blacks can view the same photographs without experiencing something close to uncontrollable rage is beyond me. And I am left with this question: is Kelly Tilghman simply ignorant or is she stupid? As McDaniel says, there is nothing remotely humorous about the word "lynch."
Many others were not. One, Earl Faulkner, Sr., contrasted the moving Golf World cover story on Bill Spiller, with what you saw as "political correctness" in the Tilghman affair:
On the one hand I finished reading Barkow's, "The Tragedy of Bill Spiller" with tears streaming down my face and on the other hand, frowning and grimacing as I struggled through McDaniel's, "Another Painful Lesson".
Al Barkow's cover story is so very appropriate, timely, and perfectly positioned for the progress America has made relative to race relations, while Mr. McDaniel seems bitterly absorbed in the ugliness of a past from which most of us have moved on.
Rather than drag society's progress backward a hundred years by agitating about lynchings, why can't Mr. McDaniel be encouraged to assume the attitude of Tiger Woods who chose to make little out of the comment by Kelly Tilghman. Woods no doubt realized Ms. Tilghman has probably no intrinsic understanding of the "L" word; however, the same can not be said for Mr. McDaniel; that guy sounds as though it is still 1882.
And many of you were outraged that so much was made of Tilghman's comment.
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Brad Virgil of Marietta, Georgia, was one.
I am driving my family nuts over the treatment of Kelly. Everyone had a chance to man up and make this what it was, a slip of the tongue with no ill intent. It sickens me that every thing misspoke about Black people is handled like a lynching. What about Ray Nagin and his Chocolate City or the REV Jackson and Hymie town(refering to NYC). Page Thompson caved in to the PC crap that is slowly undermining the way we live and breathe. And by the way, I believe Tiger is one half Thai. Anyone ask his mother lately about being totally dissed? Love the Mag, do not be afraid boys, you only go around once.
So was New Jerseyan Carl Lombardo.
Bottom line here folks is, it is not the word Kelly used, but the fear of what big Al [Sharpton] and Jesse [Jackson] are going to say that got Kelly her reprimand and whatever else may come her way â¿¿ she is ‘uneducated’ after all. I don’t believe for a second The Golf Channel's saying it was just a coincidence of timing. Now here is where the ugliness comes out and why big Al should go away. What if I were to say, It’d be OK if Chris Rock said it? (he says the “N” word all the time and I hate using letters for words when I should be able to say them or print them) It would be true â¿¿ a double standard, but true. That is why I said it was a sad day for America when Kelly got her two weeks.
Dave Williams of Ontario, California, asked, when will past sins be forgiven?
Ms. Tilghman, and the rest of us, on racial insensitivity â¿¿ over her innocent use of one of McDaniel's forbidden words â¿¿ McDaniel has shown us just how intolerant certain people can be over the innocent mistakes of others.
Despite claiming to support our right to free speech, McDaniel tells us that "certain words" are so "hateful and hurtful" that they are simply "out of bounds." For McDaniel, these special words "transcend the importance of sport" and, apparently, they also transcend the need for a common sense reaction to an innocent slip of the tongue.
The lesson being learned here is that no matter how far America has come in overcoming the bigotry of its past, for certain groups, it'll never be far enough. So, Ms. Tilghman must now be offered up as a sacrificial lamb on the alter of McDaniel's group sensitivity â¿¿ for him she's just another example of America's racist underbelly.
And then there was this letter, from a Connecticut reader who asked that his name not be used, that might be a good one to end on:
What some people seem to not realize, including the eloquent Mr.McDaniel and the not so eloquent Mr. Sharpton, is that there is a whole new generation that does not see the color of someone's skin. I suspect Kelly Tilghman would have responded the same way had Phil Mickelson or any white golfer been the runaway #1 golfer in the world. When these two gentlemen start thinking this way we won't have to deal with these attempts to make unintentional offensive comments more than just that.
Would that such a day were here.
--Bob Carney
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