Monday, December 7, 2009

Associated Press goes there

And you know where "there" is:
Amid all the headlines generated by Tiger Woods' troubles -- little attention has been given to the race of the women linked with the world's greatest golfer. Except in the black community.
When three white women were said to be romantically involved with Woods in addition to his blonde, Swedish wife, blogs, airwaves and barbershops started humming, and Woods' already tenuous standing among many blacks took a beating.
On the nationally syndicated Tom Joyner radio show, Woods was the butt of jokes all week. . . .
"We've discussed this for years among black women," said Denene Millner, author of several books on black relationships. "Why is it when they get to this level . . . they tend to go directly for the nearest blonde?" . . .
[A] study published this year in Sociological Quarterly showed that blacks are less likely to actually date outside their race than are other groups.
"There is a call for loyalty that is stronger in some ways than in other racial communities," said the author of the study, George Yancey, a sociology professor at the University of North Texas and author of the book "Just Don't Marry One."
Read the rest. A different version of the story was linked by Fire Andrea Mitchell on a post with the headline, "Associated Press is racist," which is kind of unfair to the AP.

If there is indeed a cultural phenomenon of black people criticizing Tiger Woods for his (alleged) preference in mistresses, then this is a legitimate subject of news coverage. You can criticize Tom Joyner, or Joyner's listeners, for making a racial issue out of this, but the AP isn't racist merely for reporting what other people are saying.

Imagine the media uproar if white people had made a race issue about Tiger Woods' affairs. Therefore, if Associated Press had ignored the (evidently) widespread criticism from blacks, they might have been accused of bias, as if black criticism of Woods was not newsworthy.

Meanwhile, on a slightly related tangent, the Huffington Post, Sam Tanenhaus and the New Republic are playing racial "gotcha" with Sarah Palin. And, on a very distant tangent, more evidence that Charles Johnson is crazy. As if we needed more evidence.

4 comments:

  1. In Tiger's defense.. Those women were hot.

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  2. How are they "playing racial 'gotcha'"? Either Palin's father is lying or not. If he's not, then the respective pubs did nothing wrong.

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  3. Walshe and Conroy have repeated incorrect claims in the past, about her record in Alaska pre 2008 and after, they were the one's who 'interrogated' Piper one day on her walk home from school.

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  4. Regarding the Palin bit, I posted this, but obviously it didn't work. Maybe someone else would care to do something effective.

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