Brandel Chamblee was hardly a household name when he played
on the PGA tour from 1987 to 2001; but then again, why should he have been? He
won a grand total of one PGA tour event, a minor event called the Greater
Vancouver Open, an event so noncompetitive that it was removed from the PGA schedule
after only a seven tries in 2002. Still, that’s enough to make Chamblee a golf
“expert” and fit for a job as an “analyst” on the Golf Channel.
Chamblee—like many former professional golfers who wouldn’t
even qualify as has-beens—tries to make a ‘name” for himself by being a
frequent critic of Tiger Woods. In a year where Woods was hardly in top form
and battling injuries, he still played well enough to win five tournaments,
three more than anyone else—and five more than the latest Tiger-slayer, Rory
McIlroy. That didn’t stop Chamblee grading the latter’s game this past season
an A+ in the only things that “matter,”
like getting on with the girls. All Chamblee’s favorite (white) players graded
at least an A+ (Jason Dufner merited an “A++”).
Chamblee saved his scorn for the two dark-skinned golfers on
his list; Vijay Singh received an “F” because “No man can be that petty, swing
that ugly, be in the Hall of Fame and be that irrelevant. I hate him.” Woods
received an “F” because, basically, Chamblee is envious of his success, and
like other envious little nobodies they have to claim that the object of their
envy “cheated.” He referred to an incident in school that Woods described in
his book, but Chamblee was hinting at the alleged “cheating” incidents that
Woods was penalized for this past season; one of these “incidents" was so
slight that it was almost impossible to detect with the naked eye except with a
super slo-mo high-definition camera.
With a camera and mobs following him on every shot, you have
to be pretty hard-up to find those three relatively insignificant “cheating”
incidents out of the 4,000+ shots Woods played this year—none of which could be
said to have “helped” him. Frankly, if there was any “cheating” going on, it
was whoever thought Chamblee was good enough to receive a PGA tour card.
Woods’ every move—at least in the golf world—seems to be
under a high-def camera, literally. Is it because people want to watch the
best—or is it because they are eager to see him fail? No doubt rules-bending is a frequent
occurrence in golf; it seems, however, no one ever notices them when other
players are guilty—maybe people think that they deserve any “edge” they can get
when Woods is on the same course. But
Woods attracts a special kind of animosity that can only be explained by a
white country club mentality that still sees him as an unwelcome intrusion in
their world.
Golf isn’t the only sport where petty prejudices intrude.
Take soccer, for instance. European soccer players and fans are often the
perpetrators of racial prejudice against non-white players, but in the U.S., anti-immigrant/anti-Latino
domestic politics seems to have made an inroad into the otherwise who-cares
world of American soccer. Last Tuesday, the mighty U.S. team staved off an upset
loss to tiny Panama, whose defeat allowed the Mexican national team to advance
to the World Cup. Landon Donovan—one of those “well-known” soccer players you
never heard of before—was quoted as saying "It was a miracle for them
(Mexico), and it says a lot about the American spirit. I can't imagine that if
the roles were reversed, that they would have done the same.”
Frankly, I wouldn’t blame Mexican players if they wouldn’t,
but I’ll get to that later. Donovan—who didn’t play and wasn’t even at the
match to “advise” his teammates not to “win for those backstabbing Mexicans”—is
making the claim here that (white) Americans somehow have this inbred “ethical”
superiority which few people elsewhere in the world can see (even the Russians
abolished slavery before the U.S. did—and as the pseudo-documentary C.S.A.: The Confederate States of
America suggested, if the South had won the Civil War, some form of slavery
might still be in place).
Here in this country, we can sense this moral “superiority”
from the following comments, courtesy of ESPN.uk’s webpage containing the
story:
(From a “top commentator” named David Banks) “Mexicans are
horrible people. Everybody who has ever been around them knows that. Their
ancestors starred in the movie called "Apocalypto" for God's sake.
Stupid, filthy vermin is all they are. Their own country wants them to leave
and come to the USA to steal bread out of white babies' mouths. Disgusting.” For
some reason, the ESPN.uk comments moderator thought that this was not
offensive, and contributed to the “conversation.” Or maybe he/she just wanted
to make Americans look like racist morons.
“The Mexicans would only fight to get across the border and
suck up medical care, food stamps and anything else that they can get for free.”
“Well, if you had been pelted with urine bags in Azteca, you
might be almost as irrational as Donovan apparently is.”
Not all of the comments were this mental, but it does give
you the sense that the animosity goes beyond the playing field. So what would
motivate anyone to “help” someone who they demeaned and dehumanized—and on the
other hand, why would anyone who was the target of said demeaning and dehumanization
want to help the demeaner and dehumanizer? I wouldn’t; I would do what I could
to prevent any positive outcome for them and promote a negative one. The
reality is that the U.S. team did not “win” for Mexico, but for pride and
itself.
Landon—known for his
over-sized ego—has in the past expressed contempt for Latino players
(especially those playing on the U.S. team), and naturally someone like him
attracts the rats from the walls.
No comments:
Post a Comment