I had the most bizarre experience at the golf course last week. It certainly fit the popular stereotype that golf is an elitist white racist sport that is full of “Duck Dynasty” lovers who still don’t understand how Tiger Woods is able to climb their fence and keeps being allowed to remain on the property at their tournaments.
A young 20 something white male who works at the course where I often play engaged me in an unexpected topic, that being his concern about “White Culture” in America. We had touched briefly on the news I shared with him from a recent U.S. Census study as reported by CBS, NBC, the AP (Associated Press) and others, that by 2043 the American white population will become the minority in the U.S., surpassed by the collective minority races in America.
He was visibly and unusually troubled by my sharing this information, and began to tell me that he did not accept that as accurate. He questioned the truth of what I was sharing with him and I had to later bring him the source material to make sure he knew I wasn’t talking out of my ‘golf hole’ on my ‘back nine’.
First, he initially said the following which is always a major tipoff: “I’m not very racist really, but…” I stepped in to try to turn the tide and end the convo by making it clear to him where I stood. I told him I didn’t understand people who were ‘alarmists’ about this topic and who always get worked up about the idea that white people may soon not be the majority in America. This however had the reverse effect I intended, as it only spurred the young, future PGA Klansman along.
He said he disagreed and began sharing his deep concern for the “future of his culture” (meaning the “White Culture”), and his worry that it could be threatened by such a development as white people no longer being the majority.
First, let me ask you to stop for a second and just try to define “White Culture”…a culture unique to white people that could be somehow ‘in jeopardy’, and that we must seek to protect from the threat of being surpassed with the population of minorities. What is it? Is it “Duck Dynasty”? Is it baseball, hot dogs and apple pie? After all, Major League Baseball must have thought so like professional golf for a long time before allowing blacks to ‘threaten’ the purity of the game.
Anything you come up with is ridiculous, because whatever things you start to list (Love of assault rifles, Lazy Boy recliners on your front porch or lawn, tractor pulls, Professional Wrestling, eating possum, playing the banjo) you quickly should realize that all other races share their love and practice of it as well as whites.
Here is the truth: We DO need to have a concern for protecting a culture in America. Every democracy must have a SHARED COMMON NATIONAL CULTURE – But NOT one based on RACE.
Did you know that Germany had a democracy which led to Hitler’s election? There is the perfect example of the real horrendous threat, that actually did occur, that being a national culture based on the love of the “white race”.
Just like Dr. Martin Luther King said, the most important values in our culture in America as derived from the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are those DEFINED BY MORALS…THE CONTENT OF ONE’S CHARACTER, NOT A CULTURE DEFINED BY RACE.
Our culture in America has clearly lost its moral compass, and while violent crime is a problem in minority communities and it is a problem that must be faced, the biggest moral offenders to the constitutional fabric of our nation are often corrupt white CEO’s, lobbyists and politicians who are not representing “We the People”, but “We the Corporations”….who are not following a moral code, who every day are giving their middle finger to the U.S. Constitution, in the interest of profiteering at the expense of ‘Mom and Pop’ on Main Street USA.
In closing, we certainly DO need to be concerned about what we’ve lost in our culture in America…but not a culture defined by any one race. Again, every democracy MUST have a shared national culture not defined by race, but by equality, ethics and moral character.
That isn’t a white thing, it isn’t a black thing, it isn’t a Hispanic or Asian thing, it is a HUMAN thing! Ironically, the surpassing of the white population by the collective minorities in the U.S. just might help in bringing back a moral and ‘character’ based national U.S. culture that Dr. King dreamed of so eloquently and fervently.
Connie Bryan / Ashamed Golfer
Well said. Keep reminding people of that..