"Stereotype breakers."

A friend of mine from the islands is literally a rocket scientist. Dude has a PhD in aerospace engineering from Cornell University, and he is a bigwig at some large company. (Northrop Grumman, I think)

Anyway, he doesn't fit the stereotype of what a some folks think that a rocket scientist should look like, which, to me, is a beautiful thing. It's always great to see stereotypes shattered.

I love Eminem, Jeremy Wariner, and Mick Hucknall. I also love Tiger Woods, Jerome Iginla, and Darius Rucker.

A white rapper who can spit with the best of them, a white boy who has some serious pipes (listen to a Simply Red track when you get a chance), and a white boy that can get down on the quarter mile like Michael Johnson. On the other side; a black man who kicks ass in golf, (or used to) one whose moves on the ice are "Sid the Kid" like, and one who can sing Country & Western well enough to make the most hard core redneck cry. These are all stereotype "shatterers" and all are welcome additions to the human race as far as I am concerned.

I am writing about this because of a story I saw today about Packers wide receiver Jordy Nelson. Dude is a straight beast at the wide out position, and he is a white boy. What I loved about the story was how candid he was about the fact that he uses being white to his advantage. Why? Because defensive backs are letting stereotypeitis (don't look for that word grammarians, I made it up) throw them off their game.  

"A Super Bowl hero is crediting his eye-popping success this season to old-school racial stereotypes.

Green Bay Packers receiver Jordy Nelson, who is white, has become one of quarterback Aaron Rodgers' favorite targets and believes his skin color has been somewhat of an asset.

Nelson broke into the spotlight a year ago by scoring a crucial touchdown in his team's Super Bowl XLV win over the Steelers, becoming just the fourth NFL wide receiver ever to post nine catches for 140 yards and a score in the Super Bowl.
Other Packers receivers joke that Nelson is the beneficiary of being the only white receiver on the team, suggesting opposing defensive backs don't think of Nelson as a big a threat.

Nelson tells the Green Bay Press Gazette that he's used this racial bias to his advantage. "Honestly, I think it is (a factor)," Nelson told the Press Gazette. "As receivers, we've talked about it. I know (cornerbacks coach) Joe Whitt tells me all the time, when all the rookies come in, he gives them the heads up, 'Don't let him fool ya.' That's fine with me."

Packers teammate Greg Jennings, who is black, believes Nelson isn't like other white pass catchers who've played in the NFL. "It's easy for someone to say, 'Oh yeah, he’s like one of those other white receivers,'" Jennings said. "He's not. I'm sorry. He's not. He knows how I feel about it. Maybe I'm a little biased because he is a teammate, but from watching him day one to right now, totally different player."

Among the top 15 NFL wide receivers in yardage, only New England Patriots star Wes Welker, the league leader in receptions and yards, is white.

Jennings went on to tell the Green Bay Press Gazette that race is indeed part of the story. "He uses that to his advantage," Jennings said. "Don’t put this out there because that’s our secret. But no, seriously, he has taken full advantage of every position that he’s been in whether it be special teams with the kick return game, now being the No. 2 ... however you want to put it, he's taken full advantage of it. It’s not because he didn’t put the time in. It's not because he's the white guy. A lot of it has to do with the fact that guys look at him say, 'OK, yeah, he's the white guy, he can't be that good. 'Well, he is that good. He's proven to be that good, and it's because of the work and the time that he's put on not only on the field but in his preparation off the field."

Apparently people have been underestimating Nelson for a while. He went from being a walk-on safety as a freshman in 2003 to posting the most prolific single season in Kansas State history, with 122 receptions for 1,606 yards in 2007.
Rodgers, the favorite to win league MVP honors, joined the conversation about racial perceptions with a teammate during Green Bay's blowout win over the Vikings on Monday night. "I was talking to 'Wood' (Charles Woodson) in the fourth quarter and he said, 'When you see Jordy out there, you think, 'Oh well, he's a white wide receiver. He won't be very athletic.' But Jordy sort of breaks all those stereotypes," Rodgers said during his weekly radio show in Milwaukee this week. "I am not sure why he keeps sneaking up on guys."

He wouldn't sneak up on me, I don't have stereotypeitis. If I see Jordy lining up across the field from me in the National Football League I would know that he belongs. {Story} 

Sadly for some of my color aroused friends, they just can't say the same thing.

Tiger and my other cousins.

Tiger, how is that "Cablasian" thing working out for ya? While you keep trying to work that "Cablasian" angle, certain folks will have no problem reminding your black ass that you are just another N*&&#r who happens to have a sweet golf swing. I know that you are probably the greatest golfer of all time, but now that you aren't smoking fools and going in the red on your score card come Sunday, folks are feeling more comfortable about calling you out.

"Is Tiger Woods another Mike Tyson?

Woods hasn't won a tournament since the scandal over his extramarital affairs that cost him his marriage, multiple corporate sponsorships and world's No. 1 ranking. Johnny Miller, lead golf analyst for NBC Sports, compared Woods' crash and burn to Tyson's during Golf Channel's first State of the Game Live special Friday night.

After winning the WBC heavyweight belt at age 20 in 1986, Iron Mike flamed out. He was divorced by wife Robin Givens and knocked out by Buster Douglas in 1990. Tyson was sentenced to prison for rape in 1992. He declared bankruptcy in 2003.

"It's a little bit like a Mike Tyson story to be honest with you," said Miller during the Golf Central special. "Sort of invincible, scared everybody, performed quickly under pressure. Until a Buster Douglas came along...His life crumbled. It's like Humpty Dumpty. He was on the high wall, way above all the other players, and had a great fall, and there's pieces all over the place trying to put them together." [Source]

Yes, that's the ticket Johnny; Tiger Woods and Mike Tyson. They have so much in common: One is a boxer, the other a golfer. One went to prison for rape. The other...wait.. Woods didn't rape anybody. Never mind.

Finally, if I told you that folks in a suburb of Detroit are up in arms because some...ahem, ahem, "city folks" are moving into their neighborhood, I bet you would think there goes whitey again trying to keep us out of their neighborhoods. You would think it, but you would be wrong. This little saga playing itself out in Southfield, Michigan happens to pit cousins against cousins.

"SOUTHFIELD, Mich. — Three years ago, Lamar Grace left Detroit for the suburb of Southfield. He got a good deal — a 3,000-square-foot colonial that once was worth $220,000. In foreclosure, he paid $109,000.

The neighbors were not pleased.

"They don't want to live next door to ghetto folks," he says.

That his neighbors are black, like Grace, is immaterial. Many in the black middle class moved out of Detroit and settled in the northern suburbs years ago; now, due to foreclosures, it is easy to buy or rent houses on the cheap here. The result has been a new, poorer wave of arrivals from the city, and growing tensions between established residents and the newcomers...

"There's a way in which they look down on people moving in from Detroit into houses they bought for much lower prices," says Grace, a 39-year-old telephone company analyst. "I understand you want to keep out the riffraff, but it's not my fault you paid $250,000 and I paid a buck."

The neighbors say there's more to it than that. People like John Clanton, a retired auto worker, say the new arrivals have brought behavior more common in the inner city — increased trash, adults and children on the streets at all times of the night, a disregard for others' property.

"During the summer months, I sat in the garage and at 3 o'clock in the morning you see them walking up and the down the streets on their cell phones talking," Clanton says. "They pull up (in cars) in the middle of the street, and they'll hold a conversation. You can't get in your driveway. You blow the horn and they look back at you and keep on talking. That's all Detroit." [More here]

Real talk. Some of my cousins can be...well, how do I say this? Not quite as considerate as they should be of their neighbors. I hear it from some of you Negroes right here in Philly when your less desirable cousins move into your neighborhoods. ----White folks, don't trip. I hear it from you as well. I know some white folks with homes at the "Jersey Shore", and they absolutely lose their minds if a "certain type "of white person buys (or rents) a shore home even on the same block with them. So this little issue seems to be color blind.

Still, to my friends in Southfield, all I can say is can't we all get along? Why don't you throw a big block party and invite all the neighbors. After barbecues and a brew or two, folks will open up and feel free to talk. At that point tell Pookie an em to try to be more considerate of their neighbors and then duck.

WOODS and "WOO".

So Tiger finally came out of hibernation today. He had to, I suppose, to make his long awaited apology to the world. And, it seems, that everybody has an opinion about it. Tiger's apology has been the subject of more pontification and second guessing than when the frat boy and his cronies decided to take this country to war. If people in A-merry-ca had been as concerned with the frat boy's war as they seemed to be with Tiger's f&^%$#g apology maybe the damn country wouldn't be in the state it is today. But I digress.

Tiger, on behalf of married men everywhere, I am begging you to stop the madness. Please just get back to golf and never speak of your billionaire on blonds trysts ever again. You are killing us out here. Every time you come and our significant others see your ass it starts a new discussion with the girlfriends about cheating men and what dogs men are. You say you are a sex addict, and that you are being treated for it, but Mrs. Field and her crew ain't buying it. They think it's just an excuse for you to fool around. And, now that you are busted, they say that you are just using it as a last resort to save your marriage and half of your millions. I would love to argue with them and get your back, but I know better. Sorry Tiger, you are on your own with this one.

Finally, on a more serious note; I would like to congratulate everyone who opposed the Bush policies during those glorious eight years for making it out alive. Yep, it seems that the frat boy's lawyers actually gave him the OK to massacre an entire village if he wanted to. Damn, that's putting a whole different twist on Hillary's "It takes a village" meme. It might "take a village to raise a child", but it takes a dumb ass lawyer to make it OK to wipe one out.

"The chief author of the Bush administration's "torture memo" told Justice Department investigators that the president's war-making authority was so broad that he had the constitutional power to order a village to be "massacred," according to a report by released Friday night by the Office of Professional Responsibility. The views of former Justice lawyer John Yoo were deemed to be so extreme and out of step with legal precedents that they prompted the Justice Department's internal watchdog office to conclude last year that he committed "intentional professional misconduct" when he advised the CIA it could proceed with waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques against Al Qaeda suspects.

The report by OPR concludes that Yoo, now a Berkeley law professor, and his boss at the time, Jay Bybee, now a federal judge, should be referred to their state bar associations for possible disciplinary proceedings.

But, as first reported by NEWSWEEK, another senior department lawyer, David Margolis, reviewed the report and last month overruled its findings on the grounds that there was no clear and "unambiguous" standard by which OPR was judging the lawyers. Instead, Margolis, who was the final decision-maker in the inquiry, found that they were guilty of only "poor judgment."

See that folks? "Poor judgement". Giving the legal authority to our president to massacre an entire village because you are a partisan hack only makes you guilty of using "poor judgement."

If John "Woo" held a press conference tomorrow to say that he is sorry, I wonder how many reporters would show up?

The whites would like to trade their number one pick in the "Race Draft". Any takers?

*

"I am going to blog about this Tiger mess again, and then I am going to leave it alone"

I can't believe that I previously wrote that. What was I thinking? Like A-merry-ca is going to let me leave this story alone. Our collective prurient interest is too strong. Throw in the racial angle and we can't drive past the train wreck just yet.

It didn't take long did it? But now A-merry-ca is reminding Tiger's black ass that he is black again. (I was wondering when I was going to get a chance to post that *pic ArtMaggot sent me a few days ago. Well, as it turns out, I didn't have to wait long. Remember Dave Chappelle's joke about the "Race Draft"? I keep seeing it over and over in my head.) Leave it to Rush to say out loud what a bunch of folks from a certain segment of the population is thinking. Apparently Rush doesn't think Tiger is helping the black frame of mind.

".. Limbaugh said, “Black unemployment is terrible. The black frame of mind is terrible. They’re depressed. They’re down, Obama not doing anything for them. How’s that hoax and change working for ya? They’re all livid. They thought there was going to be an exact 180 degree economic reversal, and it’s done nothing but get bad for everybody, but they’re especially upset about it because they look at him as one of them, and now they feel abandoned, and I’m sure Tiger Woods’ choice of females not helping them out with their attitudes either.”' [Link]

Huh? First of all fatso, Tiger is Calabanasian or whatever the f#^* he likes to call himself, so please don't try to dump him off on us now. And don't even try to lump his O ness in with my man. Obama has a white mother yet he considers himself a black man. It's why he will always have a place to come home to (metaphorically speaking) no matter how bad he f&^%# up. Us black folks are like that, we tend to circle around our own. Hell, even O.J.; and that hurt, because the man did murder his wife. But some people are so predictable. Rush, it's not black folks who are in a "terrible" frame of mind" because of what Tiger did, it's people like you who were all too willing to accept his phony ass front. You did it because he liked to pal around with CEO's who looked like your sorry behind while pretending that he wasn't who he was. And you and all your middle aged white male friends who envied his golf swing and his blond wife, were all too willing to look past his blackness and see____________[fill in that blank] whatever it took to soothe your racial angst.

So sorry Tiger, as the bimbo parade continues and they all have a certain hue, your Calabanasian ass is looking more and more like just another slave catching house Negro with some self hatred issues. Not one sister? How about an Asian "jump off"?...... Yeah, I didn't think so.

One blogger wrote the following:

"If Tiger Woods had cheated on his gorgeous white wife with black women, the golfing great's accident would have been barely a blip in the blogosphere."

I take it he is talking about the black blogosphere. I still think we would have been talking about him, but maybe in another context. I know that if I am going to be honest, I wouldn't be looking at him the way that I do now. Still, articles suggesting that the distance between Tiger and blacks are widening because of this latest scandal have it wrong. That distance has been very wide for as long as the Calabanasian man has been around. But now that he has hit a bump on his putting green, just watch how some people try to close it for us.

A Tiger Question For The Ladies.

*

I am going to blog about this Tiger mess again, and then I am going to leave it alone. (I hope)

To be honest, this post really isn't about Tiger, it's about one of those Men are from Mars deals that I am struggling with. The women who read this blog will have to help me out with this one.

So here goes my question:

If you are having an affair with a man you know to be married, why is it that you only get upset when you find out that he is creeping on you AND his wife? (Remember that old blues song? "Your husband is cheating on us"?) Seriously, what is all that about?

So now we find that all sorts of women are coming out of the woodwork on Tiger because each of them are starting to find out that there were others. Noooooo. So he is creeping on his wife and you don't think he will creep on you?

And I love this Rachel Uchitel character. First she was willing to take a lie detector test and swore up and down that there was nothing between her and Tiger. Then, as the other women started to surface, she promised to hold a news conference. (Hmmm, I wonder what she was going to say?) Of course that news conference was called off today by Philly home girl and news hound, Gloria Allred, because....well, chi ching chi ching chi ching. Let's see now; Gloria takes about 25%....not a bad pay day.

But I digress. Back to my original question: What is it about the "jump off'" that makes her only feel offended when she finds out that she might be "jump off" number two or, god forbid, number three?

Just curious. Maybe if Tiger had asked some of these kinds of questions he wouldn't be in this mess.

*Pic courtesy of Getty images.

Couples and another "Magic Negro".

A friend of mine went and saw The Blind Side, and he was going on and on about what a tear jerker it was. Sorry, I will pass. I am not ready for yet another Magic Negro story. I know it's the Christmas season and some of us want to feel good about ourselves, but this is one feel good story I can do without. Been there done that. Remember The Green Mile ?

Tonight I am thinking about couples. One in Washington D.C. and the other one in Orlando, Florida..

Let me start with the Orlando couple, first: It's been a slow news day so I am sure that you have all heard about Tiger Woods doing like the crash test dummy with his Cadillac SUV. (Why doesn't he drive a Buick?) His publicist has been in full spin mode ever since the mishap. It's a minor accident, Mr. Woods has been released from the Hospital; and he is fine. The spin- master had better be in full spin mode because the rumors are flying really fast. I am not a real journalist guided by the punctilious nature of that profession, so I can repeat one of them here: Tiger and Mrs. Tiger were in a heated fight and he tried to roll in the middle of the night. Not so fast. Seems Mrs. Woods is pretty good with the clubs as well and took an iron to the back of the SUV causing Tiger to- using a golf analogy- hit a sand trap.

Now what is not in dispute is that Tiger was leaving his spot at two thirty in the morning; he was involved with a one vehicle accident; and Mrs. Woods did take the irons to the back of the SUV. It will be really interesting to see how the press treats this story. Tiger is an icon and he is loved. Will the vultures start to circle to get to the bottom of this, or will they leave him alone?

The other couple that intrigues me are the two reality show wanna be clowns in D.C. Crashing a state dinner is no easy thing to do, and yet they did it. How? What the hell is up with the Secret Service? Field, they did not pose a threat to the president. Maybe not this time. Although isn't that one of the crashers I see shaking hands with his O ness in the pic? Is it me or does it seem like it's so much easier to get next to this president? Ahhh stop it field, what about the Iraqi who threw the shoe at George Bush? Yes, but that happened on Iraqi soil. This happened in the White House for crying out loud!

Another fascinating aspect of this story is the lengths A-merry-cans will go through for their 15 minutes. (Think "Balloon Boy's" parents). Are we that obsessed with face time as a culture that we would risk fines and imprisonment to get in front of the camera? Of course we would. That was a rhetorical question.

The irony of these two couple stories is that one couple is trying to stay out of the news while the other one is desperately trying to get in it. In the end, they will probably both get their wish.

Only in A-merry-ca.

The Tiger Woods President?

I found the following article from Duke University professor (damn I hate to give a Dukie props), Orin Starn, interesting. He draws a unique parallel between O-merica's two race neutral icons, and lays out what he thinks are the possible pitfalls of our ardent fascination with both men.

"It's not that far-fetched to argue that Tiger Woods' popularity helped pave the way for Barack Obama's smashing victory. That legions of golfing white businessmen already idolized Woods may well have made it less of a stretch for them and others to imagine a black man as the country's president.

For that matter, Woods, much like Obama, presents himself as something of a "post-racial" figure, crossing old color lines by virtue of his mixed ancestry.

But whether or not Woods helped some vote for Obama, the superstar golfer's effect on his sport offers a cautionary lesson about the effect of an Obama presidency: There's no necessary correlation between the feel-good symbolism of a racial breakthrough and actual, on-the-ground progress toward a race-blind America.

Many observers predicted that Woods' example would revolutionize the sociology of golf. They thought many more minority kids would be encouraged to take up the old Scottish pastime, and that the sport would shed its ugly racial past once and for all. (The Professional Golfers' Association Tour had a Caucasians-only clause until 1961.) The golf establishment promotes its youth-golf programs with "Kumbaya"-style TV ads showing smiling inner-city kids, as if the game had indeed put the messy matters of race and money in the rearview mirror. Actually, though, golf has gone into racial reverse by many measures. Back in the 1970s, 10 African Americans played on the PGA Tour. A poor Chicano kid from Dallas, Lee Trevino, became one of the era's top golfers.

Today, Woods is the lone black golfer among the 125 card-holding pros, and there are no black rising stars. Two U.S.-born Latinos now play on the PGA Tour, as do an increased international contingent and some exciting new Asian American stars. But the circuit remains overwhelmingly composed of whites from country-club backgrounds.

You don't even see black or Latino caddies anymore, now that carrying the golf bags of someone like Woods or Phil Mickelson has become a lucrative enterprise.

The reasons for the whitening of professional golf are complex. For example, in the age of the golf cart, golfers no longer use caddies, except for the touring pros. This has shut a traditional back door into the game for poor and minority kids. And to train a golf champion takes big money that many black and Latino families do not have.

So does the Tiger Woods paradox really tell us anything about an Obama presidency? I think so. If the visibility of Woods promotes the illusion of race as "fixed" in golf, the very same danger exists with Obama and the country as a whole. His election encourages a fuzzy, self-congratulatory feeling that we've exorcised the demons of slavery and Jim Crow at last. It can be easy to forget the outsize hardships facing so many black and Latino kids growing up in tough neighborhoods, and just how often poverty, marginalization and brown skin still travel together in America today.

And we don't yet have a government that looks exactly like America either. Just as Woods is now the only African American on the PGA Tour, so Obama was the only one in the U.S. Senate.

The important question is whether an Obama administration will make strides toward addressing the old demons of poverty and racial inequality that still haunt 21st-century America. His election was a good opening drive. But we still have a long iron over water ahead."

Yes, and there is a sand trap all around the putting green. But to stay with the golfing analogy; that article was a hole in one.

Article here.

"Poorly chosen words".

"On Friday during our golf broadcast, Nick Faldo and I were discussing Tiger's dominance in the golf world and I used some poorly chosen words. I have known Tiger for 12 years and I have apologized directly to him. I also apologize to our viewers who may have been offended by my comments."

"Poorly chosen words". It seems we have been having a lot of that lately.

"Lynch Tiger Woods in a back alley"?

Kelly, your little apology is nice, but you really shouldn't be apologizing to Tiger. Instead, you should be apologizing to all the relatives and ancestors to the black men who have been brutalized and lynched in this country, from Thomas Shipp to William Brown. When you trivialize something as abominable and inhumane as lynching, you set us all back 50 years, and you insult us all. Not just Tiger. Mr. Woods will be fine. Money fame and power makes it easy to forgive those who have wronged you. But I don't forgive you, because although these were just some "poorly chosen words" to you; the shit is personal to me.

So you will be back at work in two weeks and your ratings will probably go up, because more people know who you are now. You will be smarter the next time though, because you will know better than using "poorly chosen words" when speaking in public. You will remember that "poorly chosen words" should only be spoken in private.

O Time!

Damn it Barrack, I wish you wouldn't do this. I really do.

You need to stop teasing all these black folks and well meaning white folks out here.

I caught your little act in Iowa last night, and it was impressive. I gotta give it to you my man, you have some skills.

Honestly, my ankles are hurting from jumping on and off your damn bandwagon. And right now I am feeling like jumping on again. People have been telling me that I should stop being so cynical and get on board the Obama train but.....I mean I am just saying. Having a black Prez would be cool and all (at least a half a one anyway). But will having a black Prez cause our children to stop popping each other like they are all living in a video game? Will it cause one more misguided teenager to put on some protection before he has sex with some poor fatherless girl? Will it stop corporations from being greedy? And will it stop that racist cop or DA from doing something he would have if a white Prez was in the White House? I am pretty sure it won't. Our problems are much deeper than having one of us acting as commander in chief.

Still, the symbolism would be nice. And it would say something about A-merry-ca. I for one would have to reconsider some of my views of A-merry-ca and all the people in it. I would certainly start looking at my white neighbors in a more positive light. After all, if I am going to rip them when I think they do wrong, I have to praise them when they do right.

So I might ride with the half and half man for now (I don't want to be the odd man out with my fellow Afrobloggers), but I don't want to get too involved, because in the back of my mind I am still aware of where I live. "But field we have come so far. Look at Tiger Woods, look at Oprah. A-merry-ca has moved beyond race field; face it, you are living in the dark ages."

OK, we will see. Come November if all you black folks are on suicide watch after a presidential white out don't come crying to the field's blog. Because from the way things are going I will be just as hurt as you are, and I won't have any damn answers over here for you.

"Say It Aint So Joe"

"....a mainstream African American who is articulate bright and clean..."

That quote came from my man, the prattler extraordinaire, Joe Biden, while he was talking about his opponent for the Democratic party nod for President, Barack Obama. Now first, I am glad to know Obama is clean, God forbid we have a dirty senator mixing with his colleagues every day. "Hey did that Obama fellow take a bath today? I think so, I don't smell him anymore" No seriously folks, I hope you are not surprised by this little faux paux. Biden is, after all, an old white man. And whether they be democrat,republican, or independent; old white men tend to think this way. You know, if a black mother f****r can put two words together-see Colin Powell-he is a f*****g rocket scientist. So please forgive old Joe, it's just that his mouth moves so fast at times, that he just slips and says what many of his ilk think, but don't dare say.

The sad thing about Joe's latest slip of the tongue, is that it's is going to give some gasoline to the republicans fire. See we aren't the only ones who make racially insensitive remarks, your guys do it too. -See Senator Robert C. Byrd- republicans love to play gotcha with this type of sh** as if it excuses all the crap they do. And of course, there are some of those conservative republican bloggers, defending Biden's comments, and declaring them to be true. So say what you will, at least Joe's comments brings the slime to the surface and out of hiding once again.

Anyway, here is one field negro who hopes Biden stays in the race, we need stuff like this. We need this type of honesty and openness on matters of race throughout the campaign. I see where Biden called Obama and apologized. And it seems Obama issued a statement to the effect that many other blacks have run for President and have articulated a positive and important message, blah blah blah, or something like that' I am paraphrasing here. But Obama's answer seemed to rise above the fray. Kind of like Tiger Woods did when Fuzzy made his black folks and fried chicken comments. (What is it with these half and half brothers ? So graceful, so classy. Damn the field wishes he could be like that!)

So on the eve of our month, (February) the field would like to thank Joe for saying what he really feels-even he took it back- America needs that type of honesty, I just wish more people would be like Joe and say what's on their minds.