I’m usually not one to bother with the bantering abilities of that strange American royalty we call celebrity. Far be it from me to wonder if Britney Spears knows the difference between “imply” or “infer” when she’s fighting a custody battle with K-Fed. I’ve learned to live with not knowing if “Brangelina” singular or plural? But I do scratch my head when I read something like this:
Kelly Tilghan, the first full-time female commentator for The Golf Channel, joked that golf phenom Tiger Woods “be lynched in a back alley.”
What?
Here come the fireworks. It cost Tilghan a two weeks suspension. The Black Star News of New York says the comment is just part of the cancer of racism in America. Others counter, saying that the suspension wasn’t something to get so worked up over. We all suspect that kind of discussion, but , inadvertantly, Tighan’s use of ‘lynch’ has become something more–a bit of celebritispeak, so to speak. People who have never even heard of Tilgman (namely, me), let alone even knew such a creature like the Golf Channel even existed (namely, me) have now had the word ‘lynching’ set squarely on their six-oclock news casts. (Hell, she’s now even linked to The Kenyon Review blog.)
Talk about the power of words.
Thing is, should Tighan be on the air or not isn’t the question. We should be talking about her use of ‘lynch.’ To lynch isn’t just to kill. It is a word directly associated with hanging black people–especially males accused of relations with white women–and a word directly associated with white people enjoying that type of execution. Supposedly, way back before the Enlightenment, there were picnics when folks got lynched. So, is this what Tilghan was referring to? Probably not. My guess is that she probably doesn’t even know about such things. Maybe Tilghan should have been briefed by her writing staff about the history and baggage behind the word ‘lynching’ before she was given a microphone. I’m sure “nigger” would have got her canned before she ended a sentence. Just ask Dog, the Bounty Hunter. But what about those satellite slurs that offend but aren’t off limits?
At the risk of sounding like an apologist, I’m not here to run Tilghan out of town. I never watch golf, anyway. I’m just saying that we are losing our ability to think through the consequence of our words and, in a way, the meaning of the words themselves. People want to blame the ipod and American Idol, but I think the famous are the ones choking the life out of our language. Friends of mine had a “Bushism” calendar that I would flip through when I visited. I’d chuckle at the gaffes, but now, this celebritispeak gets less funny every day.