The Golf Channel suspends Kelly Tilghman for "lynch" Tiger remark
After the controversy festered for a few days, The Golf Channel has finally reversed its initial position of taking no action and has instead decided to suspend Kelly Tilghman for 2 weeks for her flip remark that young golfers should “lynch him [Tiger Woods] in a back alley.”
Here’s what The Golf Channel said on its website:
“The GOLF CHANNEL regrets the poorly chosen remarks made by Kelly Tilghman on a recent broadcast and, again, extends our apologies to anyone who was offended. There is simply no place on our network for offensive language like this. While we believe that Kelly’s choice of words were inadvertent and that she did not intend them in an offensive manner, the words were hurtful and grossly inappropriate. Consequently, we have decided to suspend Kelly for two weeks, effective immediately.”
ESPN has provided this history of the term “lynch” in the United States:
“According to Alabama’s Tuskegee University, 3,466 African-Americans were lynched in the United States from 1882-1968. In 2005, The U.S. Senate officially apologized for failing to act on more than 200 anti-lynching bills introduced over the years.
“The use of a hangman’s noose as a racist symbol has resurfaced recently, most notably in the 2006 case of the Jena Six when six black high school students in Louisiana were charged with beating a white student after nooses had been left in a tree under which the black students had asked school permission to sit.”
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