White media editors from around the country sounded the alarm. All the country club rules and lack of sponsorship for African American golfers couldn't deter it from happening. When David Duval and Phil Mickelson failed to capture golf's Masters prize on Sunday and assured Mr. Wood's place in the record books, the announcers appeared to be mortified that an athlete of color had emerged victorious yet again on a playground historically reserved for whites. The media may have thought they killed the dream with Lee Elder and Charlie Sifford. America have been the one place where the Black athlete assumes everyone is equal.
Nothing is further from the truth.
Not since Gerry Cooney and Larry Bird has America had any hope of realizing someone to champion its cause of white sports supremacy. Instead, the images of Jack Johnson, Jackie Robinson, Althea Gibson, Joe Louis, Hank Aaron, Arthur Ashe, and the Williams sisters come rushing into the consciousness of white media. If people of color hadn't been channeled chiefly into sports and entertainment careers and, instead, been allowed to compete equally on the social landscape of life, there wouldn't be a need for a Great White Hope. They would have only been focused on the hope that finally things might be balancing out. But, you can't have it both ways.