I Dislike Your Favorite Team

Two stories caught my eye. They both deal in racism, but with a twist!

The first involves college athletes and charges of kidnapping, robbery and sexual molestation. But with a twist! The victims were three offensive linemen from UNC, weighing an average of 275 pounds, and are all white. The accused molesters are all black, two of whom are women and one "a naked man with a kitchen knife."

Just a few miles from the Great Duke Rape Bonanza of 2006, we'll have to see how the UNC case plays out before we draw any conclusions about Southern Justice. At Duke, rich white frat boys were accused of sexually assaulting a black stripper. The outcome was a boon to cynics: the boys were exonerated because the stripper wasn't able to determine if she had been forcibly violated by a penis or by a dildo and the DA was disbarred for trying to prosecute them.

In the UNC case, the linemen were celebrating a birthday rather than UNC's 4-8 season. They began drinking in the afternoon; by the time they rolled into the East End Oyster & Martini Bar for more Jagermeister bombs they were hammered. One of the players brought home the three defendants, allegedly in the interest of sexual escapades. Back at the apartment, the linemen allowed themselves to be tied up by the ladies. Then the story gets a little confusing, but molestation & attempted robbery occurred before the linemen heroically freed themselves.

The second story involves a white sportsjack making a stupid, insensitive racial remark on the air, but with a twist! The Golf Channel broadcaster who said that the only way to stop Tiger Woods was for all the other golfers to get together and "lynch him in a back alley" was a cute chick.

Kelly Tilghman, the first female play-by-play golf announcer, was a star member of Duke University's golf team. Hmmm.

The Golf Channel wasn't going to punish Tilghman until Rev. Al Sharpton denounced her. Although she apologized to Woods, she is facing a two-week suspension. The legacy of dumbass racist comments has been dominated by white men, whose slap-on-the-wrist punishments were harsher than what Tilghman faces. This despite the fact that none of them invoked the brutal legacy of 3,466 unpunished lynchings from 1882-1968.

The symbolism of the hangman's noose was the motivating factor in Louisiana's Jena Six case, when six black high school students were charged (as adults) with attempted murder after beating the white student ringleader of the Lynching Tree Preservation Society.

Meanwhile in the Democratic Primaries, two members of oppressed classes are vying for their Party's nomination. To counter this, the Republican field consists of privileged rich, white conservative men. What a twist!