Trouble In Cablasia

via The Beautiful Struggler - Me, Myself and Eye

I disengaged from Tiger Woods approximately three days after he won his first Masters in 1997. One of my teachers showed us the episode of Oprah in which he dropped the "cablinasian" bomb in response to the attention he was getting as a Black golfer. Even as a child, I found it odd that it wasn't enough for him to say "My dad's Black, mom's Asian. I'm Black and Asian." Tiger had to let us know he had White in him too.

The day it all ended: "I'm 1/4 Black, 17% Asian, 3 pars Irish, 2 tablespoons Indian and a pinch of DeBarge."

I allow Tiger the space to define himself as a multiracial man as opposed to a Black one. It's his right. As a result, he's never been a "brother" in my mind. I still appreciate that he's a person of color who broke a lot of racial barriers in golf, though I winced every time he was subject to blatant racism (the Fuzzy Zoeller comment, the reporter who said he should be lynched) and did that turn the other cheek tap dance. Perhaps 'cause he has White in him, he didn't take it personally.

Just sayin'.

When Tiger married a blond ~~nanny~~ au pair/model, I wasn't surprised. He wasn't bringing home no sisters for damn sure. I didn't expect him to find a fellow mixed race woman and I didn't see him finding an Asian woman like his mother either. It was par for the course (HUZZAH). I didn't have any comment on his marriage until this weekends events put the relatively low-key couple in the spotlight. Allegedly, Tiger has been caught creeping. His wife delivered some revenge with her her hands and, of all things, a golf club. Tiger hopped in his car and attempted to drive away, but crashed outside of the house. Initial reports stated that he had facial lacerations because of the crash and that his wife was trying to free him from the Escalade that he had run into a fire hydrant with the golf clubs. As you can imagine, it only took ~~CNN~~ TMZ about 15 minutes to debunk that unfortunate attempt at spin doctoring.

If the story is as it appears, I want to give Woods credit from trying to walk away from the fight. Whatever he did or didn't do with another woman, he did the right thing by attempting to get away from his wife when she started throwing blows. It's a hard thing to do, but it's what a man has to do in a society that ultimately condones and sometimes encourages violent retribution from spurned women. I have a huge problem with this and I will get in to that later this week.

Reading the initial reactions to the Woods' incident on Twitter made my head hurt. It seems that a good number of men (and a few women) pretty much think that any woman who marries a rich or famous man is a gold digger. Not the first time I've heard that at all. Some also implied that because Elin is married to THE Tiger Woods, she should just sit back and turn a blind eye to infidelity. I guess being a millionaire by marriage strips you of the right to be hurt by your husband's actions. There also seems to be a lot of "that's what he gets" from women and a lot of "that b*tch is nuts" from the men. How about "he shouldn't have cheated and she shouldn't have hit him"? Or "Fame doesn't entitle one to cheating and cheating doesn't entitle one to violent revenge?" Maybe that doesn't fit in 140 characters.

There's been a lot of discussion in the blogosphere about famous men and cheating, and I don't feel compelled to add much else to a subject that relates to 0.0002% of the population. I'll just say that I don't believe that a man's status or net worth gives him any greater right to commit infidelity than anyone else. Most people would be very hurt by cheating, even if their husband can buy them "a house on a finger" (which Tiger stated he plans to do in the wake of this foolishness). For all you fellas on the gold-digger witch hunt ~~despite the fact that most of you lack gold for digging~~, I'd be leery of the woman who DIDN'T care when you cheated.

The image of the violent, angry wife is often associated with Black women, but it was Tiger's stereotypical blond trophy wife who bloodied his face and ran up on him with a golf club. In fact, Woods himself revealed that he bought in to that stereotype when he told a friend that his wife had "gone ghetto" on him.

Oh. The. Irony.

There is a SMALL (but loud) group of Black men that seems to believe that White women are a safe haven from the loud, angry, emasculating Black woman. That White girls will lay down, submit and put up with foolishness a man offers them. If any good can come from this incident, I hope it's the the death of that notion which is incredibly offensive to both Black and White women. I know plenty of Black and "ghetto" girls who would have handled that situation very differently than Mrs. Woods. I also know that she's not hardly the first White woman to beat her man's butt.

Do I think Tiger married his wife BECAUSE she was White? I highly doubt it. I would, however, place a considerable bet that non-White women were not a consideration for him when he was shopping for a woman. I know that he didn't expect what he got on Saturday and the fact that he called it going "ghetto" just puts a sour taste in my mouth. Tiger put a very real distance between himself and the Black community years ago and to hear him describe such negative behavior using a stereotype associated with Black life isn't surprising so much as it is simply unfortunate.

Elin Woods didn't go "ghetto" on her husband; she went human, she went woman, she went wrong*. Brothers and everyone else needs to understand that while there are some inherent differences between Black and White women, women of all races are capable of flipping the f*ck out when hurt. If you are looking for a doormat, then something is wrong with YOU and you'd do Black and White ladies a favor by leaving us alone until you become a real man who can deal with a real woman. Not real meaning 'gangsta', real meaning human, having standards and being susceptible to pain.

I hope the Woods family has a speedy path to healing, be it in couples counselling or in divorce court. I also hope that Tiger someday gains a level of awareness of the people with whom he shares "25%" of his blood and stops using the same racist mentalities that others have used to shame us. Confidence in that happening, however, is pretty low.

Tomorrow: When a man beats up a woman's heart, does she have the right to beat up his face?

*-Yes, I said it. WRONG. Come back tomorrow for an explanation.

Share this story on: