The impact Tiger is going to make
By DANNY REAGAN / Abilene Reporter-News
What Tiger Woods is going to do to the world of golf is already
self-evident.
He's already raised the bar, and his potential for record-breaking
appears unlimited.
What he's going to do to the manner in which we perceive ourselves
and others may be even more monumental.
As naive as this may sound now, he may accelerate the end to
"race hyphenation" in America.
Not that race hyphenation is bad. It's just there, and even
though many of us use it as a proud indicator of our cultural
heritage, perhaps some of us use it to keep some of the rest of
us separated from the Family of Man.
Eager attempts by both Anglos and African-Americans to pigeon-hole
Woods as a "black" golfer have been interesting.
Woods himself doesn't want to be called African-American.
He is more Asian than he is African-American (1/4 each of Thai,
Chinese and African-American and 1/8 white and Native American).
"Who are you to tell me who I am?" he might as well
have said. And rightly so.
Who are any of us to tell others who they are?
In the earlier part of this century, a "one drop"
categorization of determining race was used by various agencies
in this country. If a person had even "one drop" of
African-American blood in him, then he was black ... or back in
those days, Negro.
Seems we've been telling others who they are for a while.
The talking heads on TV are having a field day with the Woods'
race issue. But some are worth the tube time.
"I think a person should be whatever he wants to be,"
said one man of color sitting among a panel discussing Tiger.
"We're all hyphenated Americans," said another, "unless
you were on hand to meet Columbus' boat."
One of my great-grandfathers was Cajun. His daughter married
my grandfather, and both his parents were Irish. Does that make
me an Irish-Cajun-American? Well, it does if that's what I want
to be.
Many people already want Tiger to wear his various bloodlines
like changeable sports jackets. A black one. An Asian one. A Native
American one. And if Tiger chooses to do so, fine.
We should all be proud of our ancestry. It's all a part of
what makes us, well, us. Just try to be you without ancestors
and see how far you get.
A few years ago, a beauty contestant whose father was white
and mother was black had a telling response to one of those microphones-in-the-face,
"how does it feel" questions. When asked by a television
reporter how it felt to be the first "black" winner
in that particular state, she said she was proud of her black
heritage, but she was equally proud of her white heritage.
We are too caught up in labeling one another in this country.
And in doing so, we can either look like an idiot (see aforementioned
television reporter) or a bigot (see any recent story about Fuzzy
Zoeller).
We all have something in common. We are human beings.
And maybe, just maybe, it won't have to take a squadron of
city-sized alien airships (see "Independence Day") scorching
our world around us to make us get along with each other. Just
a young man with an uncanny ability to strike a golf ball and
maintain an even strain.
And maybe make a few hyphens disappear in the process.
Man, that does sound naive, doesn't it?
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