Tiger Woods and race: Vanity Fair cover speaks volumes

As most of the world knows, Tiger Woods has been in the news of late due to his exploits off the golf course, not on. What interests me most about this are the myriad of racial implications to the coverage of this relatively common story of a famous person who cheats on his wife. And we care why? Or why anymore than anyone else who cheats?

But the race part is important since Woods, who is of mixed African American, Asian, and white heritage, has dug a complicated hole for himself by distancing himself from the Black community for years and aligning himself with a white community that he should have known would turn on him on a dime -- and did. The white majority transformed his image from a nice guy sports hero to Black sexual savage faster than you can say "Cablinasian." And the black community, for the most part, has not had his back, for good reason.

Case in point: This month's Vanity Fair's already infamous cover features a "raw" (their words) Tiger Woods looking like a thug with a freshly cut cell block body minus the tattoos. Our Mr. Clean golf hero is gone gone gone.

RaceWire has a brief, interesting post about the cover shot and its implications. The post simply says:

"So folks, what do you say? The photographer, Annie Leibovitz, should be well known to RaceWire readers as a shameless provocateur, with questionable race politics. We know Leibovitz’s track record. We know the cultural context of this moment in Tiger Woods’s life and career. What say you about this latest image?"

I find the comments interesting. For example:

"Dunno if it's intentional, but I think this serves as a brilliant illustration of how public perception of Tiger has shifted from 'nonthreatening Asian/mixed-race American success story' to 'sex-crazed Black professional athlete' over the course of a single scandal..."

My take -- don't deny who you are. It will bite you in the ass eventually.

What do you think?

Related links:
The Root: Goodbye, 'Cablinasian', and Congrats Tiger, you got the race neutral response you always wanted.
Racialicious: Revisitng "100% Cablinasian": 6 Thoughts on Tiger Woods
Nketlk: Tiger woods got the OJ treatment
The Daily Voice: Tiger stereotypes Tiger, and black males too
PostBourgie: Eyes on the Tiger
Womanist Musings: Vanity Fair: Tiger Woods the Thug

(Nappy) hair notes

(Nappy) hair notes

I can do hair. Specifically what I mean is I can oil, comb, and braid all kinds of basic girl hairdos for thick, curly, course hair from the motherland – nappy hair – in all of the reclaimed, beautiful sense of that word.

My fingers have been deep into nappy hair for two generations now. A squirmy-child-head-between-my-knees-making-straight-lines-oiling-scalp-braiding-until-my-fingers-ache-rubber-bands-and-barrettes-get-it-good-so-it-will-last-the-school-week relationship with nappy hair.

But does that give me the right to say or even claim "nappy?" Where does my whitegirl self fit in the brown world I inhabit? Where is the map for the lines, the boundaries, I can and cannot cross? Am I forever on the Don Imus side of that word, never on the "Nappy Roots" side, or do I inhabit a place between?

My daughter sometimes counts on me to do her daughter's hair, just like she counts on her friends to do her own perms, weaves and extensions. She is not a hair girl, never has been and never will be. When her child was a toddler with just-coming-in-but-very-thick-hair, she just combed it into a little 'fro and left it at that. I got blamed sometimes: "Well of course she doesn't do right by her daughter's hair, after all she was raised by you."

As if.

I have a friend who loved that little 'fro. She has light brown skin and sandy-colored hair just like my granddaughter's except now hers twists and turns in fierce and lovely waist-length locks. "Oh she looks sooooo cute," squealed my friend with delight at the sight of that 'fro. "My hair was just like that when I was little," swooping my granddaughter into the sista-hood of nappy-headed girls everywhere.

Yet after all these years, I still wonder -- do white moms of black-brown-multiracial kids step over/step into some place we have no business when we claim "nappy" as part our vernacular, too?

When my grandchild dramatically screams as I comb out the tangles at the back of her neck, I tell her -- firmly but kindly -- just as I had told her mom, "Honey I know your kitchen is extra tender, we're almost done. Be still." Calling out her "kitchen," or her "nappy hair" for me, is honoring her culture and claiming her place in it -- for her.

I mean this is family I am talking about. At our house nappy=love.

Related Post: Grandma's Nappy Hair