Jan
20
“The primordial myth of Southern antebellum culture is the purity and honor of the white Southern lady, which must be protected from its antithesis—the unbridled sexual power of the black male. Anyone who’s watched D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation easily recalls the unwelcomed advances of the black-faced white actors towards the innocent belles, which only the “heroic” Ku Klux Klan could thwart. It’s a sad, but true fact that traces of that mindset linger in the consciousness of the American people. Seeing Woods pump iron and uncharacteristically display the physique he usually keeps hidden under Nike-logoed clothing, the comparison to Johnson leapt out at me almost immediately. All traces of Woods Asian heritage seemed lost. He was black, and nothing else, at least in that photograph. African-American artist Barkley L. Hendricks, subject of a recent exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts titled “Birth of the Cool,” poked fun as this portrayal of black male sexuality in a 1977 self-portrait titled Brilliantly Endowed. Nude except for some jewelry, striped socks, Converse sneakers, and an applejack cap perched on his head, Hendricks faces full frontally the long history of racist portrayals of African-American men and laughs in its face. It’s harder to look at the cover photo of Woods and laugh. There are plenty of reasons to not think highly of Tiger right now, but race shouldn’t factor into any of them.”
Unforgivable Blackness | Bob Duggan | Big Think
