Race Relations

Tiger Woods. World Ambassador for Race

Yesterday I made a short reference to Tiger as regards to race. I would like to fill that in more comprehensively with some personal observations.

I was born and raised in South Africa during the Apartheid reign. I left the country in 1976 in protest against the racial discrimination policy, which sees blacks as inferior to whites. I sought refuge in Israel only to find race the major issue there, where Jews see themselves as superior to Arabs, will not let them vote in the Knesset - and thereby, because of our Western support in arms and dollars, poisoning race relations throughout the Middle East and all of Islam. In Japan I found discrimination against Koreans. In Europe I saw it among the Germans against the Turks, among the French against the Algerians and in England against the Pakistanis. I came up against it against an anti-white attitude in America as well - in the Rosebud Indian reservation among the Sioux when I travelled through South Dakota, in Arizona among the Hopis when I visited the Grand Canyon, in California among the Paiute and Shoshone while i was in the Sierras and again in Watts in South Central Los Angeles among the Latinos and blacks where I worked as a volunteer teacher.

From my experience I believe that race relations, next to environmental pollution, is the most volatile issue on the planet today and is not being properly addressed.

Tiger Woods is a phenomenon all on his own. He is arguably the most recognized individual on the planet. One can only marvel that the grace and dignity he displays under so much media attention, while remaining essentially a private family man. Supreme master of perhaps the most difficult of all hand/eye/mind coordination game we have, he has stilled forever whatever last residues of racial bias we have in the sports world regarding those abilities.

Genetically he is a mix of African, European and Asian and is therefore directly connected via our ancestors to the three great Houses of Man. Every race can see themselves in him. He has remained aloof from racial controversy. Much of the credit for who he is goes obviously to his parents and the way they raised him.

Earl Woods was a black army officer. In the army he will have learned that there is no humiliation in saluting an officer, black or white, calling him Sir and be ready to do his bidding. I think that military discipline played a large part in his raising of Tiger. The army would have taught Earl that there is reason for establishing a hierarchy of command in the world - in which each man must find his place - and that he can rise up through that hierarchy via his attitude to serve and his ability to command. Tiger has done both, and sits, at a young age, right on top of our pile and brings credit to all aces, for we are all a part of him. Through him and the example he sets, we can come to an agreement that no race is inherently superior to another and try harder to put an end to the race discrimination that continues to plague the human family