Tiger's Stripes

If I were on Jeopardy! and Alex Trebek (rest in peace, legend) posed the question, “This Black athlete played golf last week with President Trump,” I wouldn’t even hesitate.

“Who is Tiger Woods?”

Not because I’m a genius—this isn’t Final Jeopardy material—but because I know option #2, Herschel Walker, wouldn’t have made it inside that golf club. Not because he’s Black, mind you. It’s because he would still be outside trying to figure out how to escape the rotating doors at the entrance.

Now, I don’t begrudge a man for picking up a few rounds of golf. If golf is your thing, play your 18, enjoy the fresh air, and whisper sweet nothings to your putter all you want. But when I see Tiger Woods teeing up with Donald J. Trump, I don’t see a casual weekend outing. I see a man who has spent his entire career playing the longest game of "Don’t Rock the Boat" known to mankind.

Tiger, we see your stripes.

For years, Tiger Woods has been moonwalking around race like a man who’s trying to step over a subway puddle in brand-new Jordans. Every time he’s asked about his Blackness, he sidesteps it like it’s Shaq in a free throw contest. He prefers “Cablinasian,” his custom blend of Caucasian, Black, Indian, and Asian. It’s like he took a 23andMe test and decided to be all of them at once—except the Black part, which seems to be on clearance sale every time he’s asked about it.

And I get it. Some people just want to play their sport and go home. But Tiger Woods isn’t just any athlete. He’s a cultural symbol, whether he likes it or not. He is the first Black golfer to dominate a sport built on exclusion, where the closest Black folks usually got to the course was caddying. And yet, the man who broke barriers has spent decades pretending the barriers never existed.

Now, people might say, “Oh, come on, it’s just a game of golf!” And I’d agree—except this isn’t just any game, and this isn’t just any playing partner.

This is Donald Trump. A man who called Black athletes like LeBron James and Colin Kaepernick “dumb” and “sons of b******” for daring to speak out on racial injustice. A man who couldn’t stop talking about “very fine people on both sides” when Nazis were literally marching with tiki torches. 

And yet, Trump has nothing but love for Tiger Woods. Because Tiger does the one thing Trump loves in a Black athlete: he stays quiet. He doesn’t kneel, he doesn’t tweet, he doesn’t call out injustice. Tiger Woods is the dream—an elite Black athlete who doesn’t make the elite uncomfortable, and not just because their daughters aren’t waitresses. 

I remember when he got the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Trump in 2019. That wasn’t just an award. That was a loyalty badge. That was Trump saying, “You’re one of the good ones.”

Because here’s the thing—Trump doesn’t like Black athletes. He likes obedient Black athletes. The ones who smile, shake hands, and avoid using words like “oppression” or “systemic racism” unless it’s in reference to missing a putt.

It’s like that one scene in Django Unchained where Samuel L. Jackson’s character looks at Django, looks at the white folks, and then back at Django, confused. That’s how a lot of us feel watching Tiger out here golfing with Trump like it’s a father-son outing.

Golf has never been a neutral sport. It’s a game that, for most of its history, kept people like Tiger Woods out. The Augusta National Golf Club didn’t even admit Black members until 1990—1990! That’s not even ancient history. That’s the same year The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air premiered. The same year Home Alone dropped. Tiger Woods grew up in a sport that, for a long time, didn’t want him there.

So you’d think he’d have some perspective on what it means to be a trailblazer. But nah, Tiger has chosen a different route. He’s chosen silence.

Some might argue that’s his choice, and they’re right. He doesn’t owe us speeches or activism. But let’s be real—his silence is louder than any speech could ever be. And in 2025, when America is at a cultural crossroads, silence is not neutrality. Silence is complicity.

Tiger Woods doesn’t have to be Muhammad Ali. He doesn’t have to be John Carlos raising his fist. But he should at least acknowledge the game he’s playing—both on and off the course. Because history remembers those who stood for something. And it also remembers those who tried to blend in until the tide turned against them.