I truly do not feel that the black community—and black women in particular—care about Tiger and his infidelity. Nor do we care about the race of his paramours. Tiger has always self-identified as a mixture of races, and that is his right. It is his blood. While it stung when he first called himself "Cablinasian" a billion years ago, we've all pretty much gotten used to the idea that Tiger doesn't consider himself solely a black man, and that he's attracted to white women. AND THIS DOES NOT UPSET US. It is his prerogative, his choice, his right. When the ethnicities of the women he allegedly bedded were revealed, most of the black women I know just shrugged their shoulders, silently wished we could talk about more important things instead of who Tiger's slept with, and MOVED ON. I am literally going from site to site, begging "journalists" to please, please, PLEASE stop using me and a quote I gave to the Associated Press that WAS TAKEN OUT OF CONTEXT to bend their stories into stereotypical characterizations of an entire black community. I did NOT sign up for that, I DO NOT agree with the "black people have a problem with Tiger because he didn't cheat with black women" premise of these stories, and I really wish we would stop dragging black women into this mess. Tiger cheated on his wife. With a LOT of women. That's the story—nothing more.
My pal Denene Millner, a journalist and author of several books including, ironically, "The Angry Black Woman's Guide to Life", granted a forty minute interview to an AP reporter about whether or not black women actually cared that all of the women Tiger Woods cheated on his wife with were white. She even followed up with an email linking to a piece she wrote called "Something Old, Something New: The Color of Love", explaining that a lot of African American women (including her) are no longer bothered by interracial relationships.
The result? This ridiculous article. I ignored it when it appeared initially because I think the title is a lie (Tiger's troubles widen his distance from blacks? Not so much...) so I was not pleased when I saw a link from Denene on Twitter this morning explaining how the AP misquoted her to fit into the "angry black woman" meme of the story. It never ceases to amaze me how invested some people are in pushing that image (and ONLY that image) of black women out into the mainstream. There is even an email going around that proclaims doom for black women ("Sistahs don't stand a chance!") that shows a string of black men with their non-black wives and girlfriends. The idea of course is for "bitter, bitchy, angry" black women to lament all the black men who don't want them - as if we have no other choice in the entire world. It's really pathetic.
Where are the stories about the tons of black women who actually supported Tiger's white Swedish wife Elin (several black women on two of my Twitter streams actually declared themselves "Team Elin!") It is getting to the point where I simply don't trust any story that purports to tell me what black women supposedly think because most of these reporters already seem to have their minds made up.
Please also see Danielle Belton's The Indifference (and Unsexy Quotes) of the Apathetic Black Woman.




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