No, I don't mean whether there are more women waiting in the wings to tell all about their tryst with Tiger. I have no idea and frankly, I'm not even curious about that.
What I do find curious however is that according to news reports and speculation, Tiger's wife chased him down the street wielding a golf club as a weapon, with every intention of doing him physical harm. In fact the only way we know about the story is because she apparently did cause him to have a car accident, resulting in injuries that sent him to the hospital. Yet when the story breaks it is his wife who is portrayed as the victim - Tiger is unquestionably convicted as the bad guy.
Now I'm not going to condone cheating on one's spouse, and I guess that cheating multiple times is exponentially worse than cheating once. But since when has it been acceptable to settle a marital dispute by beating one's spouse with a golf club? My guess is that if Tiger had been chasing her down the street with an intent to beat her up, he would have been arrested for attempted battery and she would have been portrayed as the victim.
So how does that work - no matter what, she's the victim?
And what's with the national fascination with their story? He's not the first man nor first celebrity to be unfaithful to his wife. And he's certainly not the first sports superstar to be caught with multiple counts of infidelity. So why is this one getting so much attention and early predictions of this as the end of his career because he's now "damaged goods"? Michael Jordan was widely reputed to have cheated on his ex-wife Juanita for MANY years yet he wasn't villianized for his behavior the way Tiger has been. Did he just have a better press agent?
I suspect that the aggressive response to Tiger's infidelity is due in part to the fact that he's a man of color and his wife is White. I think subconsciously, or in some cases consciously, the media has played on the old stereotypes of Black man as super stud as his wife as the lilly-white damsel in distress. I also think that the enthusiasm for pronouncing the death of Tiger's career is related to the fact that this man of color was unquestionably one of the best to play a White man's game, i.e. golf. He came onto traditional White turf (with his skills and his choice of a mate) and was more successful than most knew they could ever be. It was annoying but he is so undeniably awesome at golf that they had to give him his props. And he was also known as squeakly clean. I can only imagine how that must have added insult to injury for some.
So now the waiting of those who were jealous of his talent and success has been rewarded. At the end of the day, Tiger has proved to be human. Maybe not a surprise, but disappointing nonetheless. What has been a surprise is the speed and viciousness with which the media and some of his "friends" have publicly turned upon him.
Yesterday he announced a break from golf. I hope he gets a break from all of us as well.
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