Should Suspended Golf Channel Analyst Have to Explain Herself

[erpowers]

I am not trying to extend the controversy of Golf Channel analyst Kelly Tilghman. I am also not trying to over blow the issue. However, I wonder should Ms. Tilghman be asked to go on TV to explain what she was thinking when she made the comment? I do not think she needs to be bashed, but maybe it would be reasonable if she did one appearance to explain what she was thinking when she made the comment on Friday.

[devilgrrl]

1. What are talking about?

????????????

[blondeatlast]

3. Video here:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2357899846764354620&q=tilghman+lynch&total=6&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=4

Edit: slightly better video.

The discussion was about Tiger Woods.

[madinmaryland]

4. The analyst was talking about ways to stop tiger woods,

and she said something along this line:

"they (golfers) should gang up on Tiger and lynch him"

[erpowers]

17. Just Clearing Up

By now you probably saw the video that was posted to your reply to the original post. However, I will clear up things for you. I did not post an explaination before because I thought most people had already heard about the event.

On Friday, during a golfing event, which was aired on the Golf Channel, golf analysts Kelly Tilghman and Nick Faldo were talking about Tiger Woods and young golfers. At one point Tilghman and Faldo were discussing how the sport needed more superstars. Later, they went on to try to discuss what young golfers needed to do in order to compete against Tiger Woods. Faldo started by saying that young golfers should gang up on Woods. Tilghman jumped in and said "lynch him in a back alley". Tilghman later apologized to Woods and he accepted the apology, but Tilghman was later suspended.

I am wondering if she should go on TV to explain what she was thinking when she made the comment. I am not trying to be mean to her. I just think people might be wondering what she was thinking when she said what she said and why she used that such language.

[devilgrrl]

20. Thanks for the info. I'm not surprised to hear such a comment from the Golf Channel

It's the whitest station on TV!


BTW, I love it that Tiger Woods is the best golfer in the world, if not ever. Tee hee hee. :evilgrin:

[riverdale]

2. What comment?

I hate it when people post a topic like this, but don't give any clue as to what the incident in question was.

[erpowers]

18. See Post 17 n/t

[RoadRage]

5. NO!

She totally didn't intend it to come out like that. She is a good friend of Tiger Woods, and apologize to him as soon as possible. He has come out and publicly accepted her apology and acknowledged that she meant no harm at all.

This was NOT an "Imus" incident.

[malaise]

9. Really now

if you're prepared to come on air and suggest that they lynch anyone in an alley, you may be an insensitive racist jackass, but you sure aren't my friend or a friend to my race.

Black people don't like that word lynching - it has real meaning.
maybe next time she should wave a noose.

[RoadRage]

12. She may not be your friend..

But she's a friend of Tigers. The comment she made was not INTENTIONAL. That doesn't mean it wasn't racist or insensitive.. it was. I just don't think she in anyway intended it to be.

If she had said the same thing about a white guy, it wouldn't have been thought about twice. And, with her & Tiger being friends - I don't think she thinks of his race when she talks about him. I know I don't think about my friends race when I talk about them.

Stupid? Yes. Intentional? No. She was suspended... that's enough.

[Brewman_Jax]

16. She's a friend of Tiger's?

that doesn't let her off the hook. It's even worse that she said that about a friend.

She wouldn't have said the same thing about a white guy because white guys don't get lynched.

[blondeatlast]

13. Racist speech has NO place in the public arena.

I don't allow it in my home--yet it invades anyway by the likes of her.


The FCC rides hard over the use of the "F" word--but this kind of hate gets a pass?

Not in my home. she should be fired and publicly shamed so that she never works in the media again--and I'm as white as they come.

[JanMichael]

6. She should apologize profusely for being a racist

and be fired.

I am not interested in bashing her; I am interested in seeing our media develop zero tolerance for racist remarks.

[blondeatlast]

10. Precisely. the problem is that if the media "gets away with it" it filters down

into social situations.

I don't tolerate racist or sexist talk in my home so why must I in entertainment? :mad:

[Marrah_G]

14. The woman obviously didn't mean it that way

She spoke without thinking. She did not intend it in a racist and harmful way. She was suspended. She doesn't deserve to lose her career over it.

Someone posted about the term "shuck and jive", until it was brought up here I had NO clue it was a racist term. I don't think I've ever used it, but if I had, without any racist intent, would I deserve to have my career taken away?

[JanMichael]

22. Her job is to think when she speaks.

sorry. I stand by what I wrote: zero tolerance. I don't care if she is best buds with Tiger, in fact I don't care if she is related to him, and he has accepted her apology. When you are speaking in public, you have a moral, ethical obligation to not make remarks like this. It is not all about what she "meant," nor how Tiger feels about it.

[Marrah_G]

11. The comment was not intentionally racist

She used a phrase without thinking about it first. She got slapped for it. She shouldn't lose her career for it.

This is not an Imus moment.

[NeedleCast]

7. There's a Channel for Golf?

[Nailzberg]

28. LOL!

I found that more shocking than the story!

[Brewman_Jax]

8. No

the video says it all. She should've been fired on the spot.

[cgrindley]

15. English is a huge language

I think that when a person is speaking in English (as opposed to other languages, the majority of which are linguistically impoverished in comparison), there's too much choice with regard to synonyms. If she'd said "jumped" instead of "lynched" or "beat up" or any number of other words, no one would have cared particularly much. As it is, I don't think that word choice is always 100% deliberate. Does anyone really put any thought into the choice between "take", "pick up", "grab", "get" and so on? This commentator was delivering an off-hand remark, attempting to further another commentator's metaphor. I wouldn't put any meaning to it. I imagine that she would have used "lynched" with a white or asian golfer (Tiger is also a white golfer and an Asian golfer by the way, being only 1/4 African American). I doubt this would have been an issue if Fuzzy Zoeller hadn't been an asshole.

PS shame on Al Sharpton for clinging to a 19th century understanding of race.

[karlrschneider]

24. Sharpton is a loudmouthed asshole and is largely responsible for the fact that

the "n word" is still widely used.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

27. Makes you want to use it yourself, eh?

:eyes:

[Brewman_Jax]

26. That phrase was precise

and the fractions of black are a crock of shit, that remark is aimed at a specific demographic group. Shame for defending racist and unprofessional behavior. :eyes:

[cgrindley]

29. I don't think that it was precise

for one thing, you don't lynch people in an alley. Lynching is a public act. In context, her word choice was absurd. It was obviously a linguistic error.

[truebrit71]

19. I think it was an off the cuff remark, which when taken in the context of the conversation would NOT

...be an issue had they been talking about Justin Rose or Phil Mickelson.

I do not believe that there was intentional racist malice meant or inferred and that it was an unfortunate choice of words...

When taken in context of some of the coded words used by Karl Rove to describe Barack Obama this is a mountain out of a molehill....

[Stinky The Clown]

21. I'm guessing this was an innocent case of 'broadcasting while stupid'.

I am not a golf fan and have never heard of Kelly Tillghman. I think Nick Faldo is a former pro golfer. I DO know who Tiger Woods is, and I have heard of lynchings and know what they are.

Neither Tillghman nor Faldo would ever break into my consciousness, but Woods and lynchings very well might.

So, when filling dead air with a fluff discussion of how young people can get the best of Tiger Woods, who is black and who everyone knows is black (multiracial, to be absolutely correct), it is possible that the term 'lynching' can enter the consciousness, float around that part of the brain that forms thoughts, become a relevant sentence, and fall out of the moth to become spoken words, even before the speaker knows it.

I am not excusing her comment. Professional talkers are supposed to know better. But I can absolutely understand how it could be said completely free of malice or even intent.

Edit to change "gold" to "golf" in the first line.

[karlrschneider]

23. Tiger is not offended...why are all the whining shriekers so fucking exercised?

Of course it IS the most important story in the whole goddamn world...
:eyes:

[fishwax]

30. you seem quite exercised yourself

:eyes:

[karlrschneider]

31. Not at all...I am blithely relaxed.

...

[dionysus]

25. Is she the one who also got caught (thinking her mic was off) calling the US womens solheim cup team

pigs?