Golf Commentator Got Into Trouble For "Lynch" Tiger Woods Joke

As George Carlin said: You can make jokes about anything and anyone. You can use the words you want. Words are not good or bad. Only the teller of the joke can make them bad. If a racist tells a somehow racist joke its not good. If someone tells a somehow racist joke who is not a racist in any way is a different thing.

The only way people can say that the comment was "overblown" are actually quite ignorant of American history. As an American who is a descendant of slaves and can trace my history in this country to three of the original thirteen colonies, I am deeply offended that I must constantly defend the AMERICAN experience of the descendants of African slaves.

I often find that Americans whose ancestors arrived in the late 19th and 20th centuries need to educate themselves about American history and stop minimizing the history of our country.

Please take the time to educate yourselves about why "lynching" is no damn joke: http://www.abolishthenword.com/

that wasn't racist, come on, people take things so seriously

and you can always rely on rev. sharpton to swoop in with his anti-racism flag and save the day. i'm wondering... how much does the FCC commission him for monitoring all their air-space? he needs to get a life. he wants to rid our country of racism? he needs to let the issue go and stop calling people out on every single verbal mishap. people say things that they don't necessarily mean. i'm sure rev. sharpton has said some pretty crazy things, but because he is a man of such stature, nobody will call him out on it. give it a rest.

Al Sharpton getting involved in a trivial race issue? Well, now I have heard everything.

Al Sharpton is a vulture. He loves to see his name in the headlines and get paid to do TV spots.

Ever since Tawana Brawley he has stayed away from any serious issue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawana_Brawley

Where's the third option for 'Grow up and stop making race an issue!'?

There was nothing wrong with the comment. If the comment was made towards anyone else who wasn't black it wouldn't ever have been talked about. We are keeping racism alive by continuing to accuse people of racist things that aren't remotely racist.

... i don't think the comment was racist... or even an inappropriate joke.

I disagree with George Carlin (that kind of mindset is a cop out that allows anyone to say anything -- however insulting and vicious as long as you at least pretend that you don't *really* mean it. (The equivilent of being able to say rude and insulting things but following it with "no offense" or the newer "I'm just sayin'"

If you've ever seen the photo of those black men hanging dead in a tree while a crowd of white men and women grinned happily below and around it, you'll know that the idea of lynching isn't funny...and it happened not all that long ago.

I agree with George Carlin. People need to say what they mean, and not tiptoe around. If you're a racist, come out with it and say so, and then we can mock and ridicule you. Like we mock Al Sharpton every day, cuz he's an idiot.

I'm more annoyed at the dopey "poll" -- what kind of poll is it when the only 2 options are that it was racist or that it was inappropriate? How about "it was just a joke, lighten up"? I guess the pollster has his opinion that it was wrong and offers no option for contrarians.

It wasn't even inappropriate_ it was just a joke and a pretty good one at that
Lynching refers to the administration of a penalty by people not authorized to do so or the imposition of an unsanctioned penalty for a crime.
No race has been the exclusive target of lynching,so Sharpton's position is either political posturing or excessive sensitivity _ either way Sharpton's the inappropriate one, and that's no joke.
The results of your poll bear me out , and I do NOT read comments before I post because other people's points of view may influence the clarity of my position. After I send I'm gong to read the other 9 commentators' submissions, and I bet you I've just repeated what others said.

Now here's a joke that can be construed as offensive on several different levels_ but it truly is not meant to offend anyone_it's just a wry comment on my community
" To a Trini, (Trinidadian, citizen of the republic of Tribnidad & Tobago)there are no ineffable mysteriess, we can eff anything.
Put that in your smoke and pipe it, Sharpy.

Gerard René Supersad

This was a whole lot of nothing. I didn't even catch what was so "offensive" the first time I saw the clip. Only after a newscaster stated what Rev Al Sharpton was so hot-under-the-collar about did I even know which anchor had made the "inappropriate" statement. It's nothing people. Get a life and stop being so sensitive to what amounts to nothing.

seems to me that the joke indicates a healthy unconcern with the man's race, like the anchor was thinking of woods as a golfer rather than a Black Golfer. as was already pointed out, it wouldn't have drawn any accusations of innapropriateness if it had been said of a mexican, spanish, east asian, west asian, polish, russian, irish, or martian golfer.

so let me get this straight... you can say "we should lynch him" if he is a white guy... and its funny. but if you say "we should lynch him" and he is a black guy, it is suddenly racist.

i love bleeding hearts :-)

What I'd like to know is how the Rev. Sharpie always seems to know about these "comments" and manages to get his name in the media about how racist etc it is.

Come on Rev.. Get an honest job! This country will always be, or supposedly be, racist because of media hogs like the dynamic duo, the Revs. Jackson and Sharpton...

It's actually neither.

It's not inappropriate, it's just not very good or indeed funny or interesting.

Sharpton is what we call in Australia A wowser.

Someone who loves to be outraged adn so looks for offence.

In a nation with so much racial problems I think Sharpton et al have bigger fish to fry than this non story.

I remember when the Mad cow thing broke in the UK, there was an outcry from elements of the feminist movement protesting that it should be mad CATTLE disease.

As I said, when people start protesting about that level of incosequential rubbish then they are missing the bigger picture.

Neither inappropriate or rasist. If she had said, "Beat him in a back alley" would we be having this conversation?

WrapAroundSam, Al Sharpton job is racism. If there were no racism Al Sharpton will have no job.

C) Inappropriate racist joke.

Although I am tired of Rev. Al Sharpton hopping on media bandwagons, the comment was racist.

The term lynching has a connotative value in America that debases African-Americans. Lynching is a term that has historical significance to a time period when black men were being hung and castrated because they were black. I wish that US history classes in schools taught a total, authentic history of our country, so that more people, particularly those of you who think that her remark was a just a joke.

She is not prejudiced. I'm sure she believe that what she said was cheeky, but in good, clean fun. I like her as well, but I do believe she never would have made that reply if she was referring to Sergio Garcia.

And I liked the poll. :) Great, great blog.

It's only a racist comment to people who want it to be. Most likely, the infobabe making the joke had no idea that it referred to something ugly in the deep south 40 years ago, and that's actually a good thing in many ways. Though not to race pimps like Sharpton who maintain money and power through race baiting.

I have to believe that a journalist would have to be aware of the charged meaning of the word "lynch".
Would this have been an issue if she had said the word "lynch" about a white man? Probably not.
Would she have USED THE WORD "lynch" if she had been talking about a white man? Probably not.
It was an inappropriate racist joke.
I do agree with everyone about Al Sharpton, though. He's a joke himself.

they used to lynch cattle rustlers....

As someone who works in Equality and Diversity I have to say that I think this is an inappropriate racist comment. There's a negative historical context around this use of language and a professional broadcaster should be aware of that. Personally I'm not one for the finger wagging approach as making someone feel like an idiot doesn't solve anything, it should be used more to educate people as to the impact negative comments like this can have and what they reinforce.

Thirty years ago, it would probably have been a racist and inappropriate joke.

In this case, I think it was simply an innocent use of words that also happen to have some unfortunate historical connotations. I think for the under 40 crowd, the history of lynching and race is thankfully increasingly alien, to the point that such references may not carry the same weight as they might for, say a 60 year old.

If it were some kind of written story, where more thought and editing can be exercised, I'd say it was at the least a display if ignorance. As an off the cuff comment, it should be allowed to slide.

It was a dumb move in reference to a bud. Friends do that to each other.

Sharpton's an idiot. 'nuff said.

I'd like to see a poll of how many Neatorama readers are white.

Of course no black person of comedian or rapper has EVER made a crack at white folk, so I can see why they have their panties in a knot over the VAST discrimination that ONLY white people give to black people. Oh the inhumanity of it all. I feel sad now, knowing that black people are all such delicate snowflakes to be hurt by simple words.

Pol x,
Not all Australians fob off people that want to see an end to divisive racist comments as "wowsers", plenty of us want a more progressive, tolerant equal society. You don't speak for Australia.

The comment was indeed racist.

An NFL referee was just fined and suspended for calling a black player "boy". The ref was black too.

Comment was not racist. "Lynch" is not an exclusive term. She probably thought of it as an Old West term. it wasn't racist or inappropriate. It was just the typical dumb comment news anchors make when they deviate from the teleprompter.

Crying wolf on petty issues like this just muddy the waters for the true problems of racism.

Sharpton is demeaning himself and his cause.

It boggles my mind how insensitive people are about American history. If such a comment was made about the Holocaust everyone would be in arms!

Personally I think "inappropriate" has become another one of those words that the politically correct holier than thou thought police have "appropriated" and somewhat ruined in normal usage for the rest of us.

Regarding the joke: I agree with Pudifoot in that if Woods had been white then there'd be no issue to discuss and nothing more would have been said. In other words - it's ok to make a joke about lynching a white guy.

And in other words there's a racist premise behind taking issue with the joke. If it's ok to make a joke about lynching a white guy but not a black guy then surely that's equally racist - is it not? Or are black guys "more equal" than white guys? (To take the Orwell theme further.)

Can you reasonable people - without a flea in your ear - Alex included - see the thought police in action here - not to mention the language police affecting your choice of words for the survey?

I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it.

But it's a bit like saying 'Hilary is going to get raped by Obama'.

Carruthers, let me say that I find a couple issues with your statement, but I feel I should at least address your notion that being politically correct means being "holier than thou" or that calling someone out for saying something offensive equals the policing of thoughts. I don't think anyone here said that someone shouldn't be able to express themselves however they wanted, but it is obvious from the controversy over this comment that there are enough people who consider the comment inappropriate to their sensibilities that they are willing to call foul on the woman for her comments. I don't think anyone has said that she can not be racist or cruel or insensitive in her own private remarks, just that that is not what they expect or want to hear from a mainstream broadcaster. In this context inappropriateness means not being subjected to, say, profanity during a prime time TV program or, perhaps, an "accidental" wardrobe malfunction during the Super Bowl. There is a baseline level of civil discourse that is expected, hopefully, by a majority of Americans which means some talk ought to be checked for propriety, lest we devolve into ignorant fools. Talk, for example, referencing a black man, a lynching in a back alley, by a gang. One does not have to look too far back in American history to know that a comment like that would stir up a ruckus; she should have known better.

As for the whole "if that comment was made about a white guy" straw man fallacy, well, that's for another time.

Stupid impressionable white woman. She needs a big black horse dick down that throat of hers.

People in and out of public life innocently say things all the time that later get misconstrued by activists with agendas. But we're all human, and should lighten up; - unless of course someone really intends to be discriminatory. Instead, we should all be mature enough to know the difference.

In other words SiteSeer, you're one of those thought police officers.

I just haven't heard the word 'lynch' used in any other context except as an offense or violent act against a black man. "Hang'em" is a cowboy term.

"She probably thought of it as an Old West term" nobody knows what she was thinking but 'lynch' was the wrong word to use. How about if she didn't say anything but just drew a noose?

ps, Woods has been very gracious about this and other comments made about him. Sharpton is an asshat...

if anyone still wants to complain about this... they should check out the example that is used for the word Lynch in the Urban Dictionary.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=lynch

They absolutely used the term lynch in the old west. One thing to keep in mind is that after the civil war, many confederate veterans spread out an worked on ranches in the west. I'm not a young guy and my father is very very old and my grandfather was born well into the 1800s. I heard many stories of lynching in Oregon and Washington state- one nasty one involving sheep rustling. This is the sad history we live with, but it's not all about the African-American experience in the deep south. I don't know how to say that without sounding like a creep, but it's pretty arrogant to presume that history is all about one people and lynching is not all about racism. Not remotely.

Listen, people, I've been watching her on the TGC for the past year, and let me tell you, she is what gives you Yanks a bad name.
No manners, no etiquette, can't shut up, and even tries to follow up Nick's intelligent, funny, sarcastic, ironic, self-deprecating but excuse-me commentary by saying something stupid - and this time, she got caught doing her idiotic thing.

She should never been allowed to be on the air in the first place, that woman-man person. Absolutely horrible and says the most idiotic and inappropriate comment constantly.

Now the whole world knows how her head works. She got caught with her head in the gutter, which is where it always is.
I wish I was a video-editor who had taped all of her stupid comments from the past year, cos I can tell you, as an avid golfer for the past 30 years, there has never been a person who's totally lacking class as her in golf commentary, ever! And it sort of puts a dent in what golf has been trying to espouse and embrace with the First Tee programme, about how golf is teaching young kids manners, etiquette, courtesy, and all the good stuff to make a person a well rounded person in the world with excellent human qualities.

She is from the gutter and she should go back there. She should've at least have had the courtesy and SENSE to realize what she had done, and should've walked away on her own accord, and not be "suspended." She should simply resign now, and let TGC fix itself, cos obviously, some of the management at TGC should also have their heads examined.

You talk about how sometimes you want to shake your head in disbelief at what stupid things some of these commentators say, or roll your eyes at the pathetic words spoken? She exemplified all of those things.

I was amazed she survived this long without people catching onto her.

Whoa, sounds like Flogger wants to do some lynching of their own - that's okay to say, isn't it, because it's about a white woman?

The thing is: Sharpton is more of a racist than this woman, since he looks at Tiger Woods and sees a black man. He's objectifying Woods, and trying to make him into a victim, for his own selfish ends. He's trying to tell us that there are differences between black and white, and that there always will be.

It's sad. This could be why America is scared of Obama, and will elect tired old, corrupt Hillary in.

Well Tiger Woods is more Asian than is is black so I don't see how it's "racist" towards blacks...