Is Tiger Woods a Self-Hating Black Man?

The shield of innocence has been snatched off of Tiger Woods' face. Until November 25, 2009, Tiger held a tight grasp on his clean-cut image. Until November 29, he had lived a private and what seemed normal life in his luxurious home in Orlando, Florida, with his picture-perfect wife, Elin Nordegren and picture perfect children. On November 25th 2009, the world found out about the true Tiger and despite all of his accomplishments he is now being summed up and seen as a shameful, dishonest, cheater. Many wonder, now that Tiger has gotten himself caught up in scandal will media play on his race? Will they use his race to alienate him as they did O.J. Simpson? Will the black community stand behind him?

It may not be a well-known fact, but many African-Americans have felt alienated from Tiger Woods long ago. This revelation of his mistresses has just pushed them even farther away. Tiger Woods now has fourteen mistresses and so far not one of them is African American or seems to be of African America descent. It is this fact that has many African American women and some men raving. One commenter on the entertainment site Bossip.com geared toward Black pop culture writes; "I definitely don't feel sorry for this sellout....you reap what you sow!" another writes, "That's what he gets if he would have stuck with his own race none of this would have happened,." And lastly one writes, "Tiger must really hate black folks and women that is why he is in the problem he is in now." The tone expressed here expands over a great portion of the black community.

Tiger Woods is not popular within the black community. A great portion of the black community deems him as a self hating black man because he does not claim himself as black and because he has not been charitable to the black community. It is true, Tiger Woods does not claim to be Black nor does he claim to be White or Asian he claims himself to be "Cablinasian" a term he coined himself to describe being "a mixture of Caucasian, black, American Indian and Asian". Yes it's true that despite his millions of dollars Tiger Woods has not given any gifts in monetary form or any personal time to help impoverished areas of the black community. His heart is not made of steel. With his father Earl Woods, Tiger Woods established the Tiger Woods Foundation which is geared towards empowering kids it includes the Tiger Woods Learning Center and provides scholarships, grants, and character development programs to help children (of all kinds.)

So, now it boils down to this one question, is Tiger Woods really a self-hating black man? We know that the black community feels that Tiger is self-hating because he surrounds himself with Caucasian friends, white women, does not claim the African American ethnicity, and does not help impoverished African American communities. To qualify as self-hating one would have to refuse to identify with his own ethnic group, he'd have to be ashamed of his own ethnicity and he'd have to go out of his way to avoid being connected to his own ethnic group. To many in the community it seems as though Tiger has done all of these things and so qualifies as being a self-hating black man. When making such a claim and passing such judgment many people often overlook one major point; Tiger Woods is not a black man. Tiger Woods is seen as a black man because of his complexion.

He is multi-racial and should be looked as so. He owes no one in the black community or in any community any clarity or even any support. Tiger Woods seems to be continuing on in life as he was raised; in a nice suburban area in a nice suburban school, surrounded by nice suburban friends. He just so happens to have an affinity to women of Caucasian descent. This affinity is just preference, just as we have preferences over eating hot or cold food, spicy or plain food. It does not mean that we hate all food. If Tiger were to have been ashamed of or denied his African American father Earl Woods (because of his ethnicity) then we would be justified in saying that he was a self-hating black man, but as seen in pictures Tiger Woods loved and showed affection to his African American father. If Tiger had outwardly said I only date white women because I do not like black women or the black community, then we would be able to justify him as self- hating. Tiger Woods has not done or said anything to this extent. He has remained hushed and private and unfortunately it is this lack of openness that has many confused and quick to judge.

This judgment that is passed on Tiger is passed because many in the black community can not relate to him, and he appears to not do anything that embraces black culture. Upon close inspection, we can see that Tiger Woods does not seem to really embrace any culture at all he just seems to be living life, enjoying a good game of golf.
We don't see Tiger embracing black culture because he really is a private guy. It is still unknown what his favorite shows are or what type of music he favors, for all we know he could enjoy Spike Lee films and Jay-Z. Unless Tiger Woods opens up his private life a bit more, the African American community will continue to see him as a self-hating black man who chooses not to connect with them.

With the walls crumbling around him it is still unknown whether the black community will support him. It seems as though the black community is already, ready to forget him, just as they feels he forgotten them.