I was reminded again this week that the South is still the Old South in many ways.  I was playing golf by myself on Friday afternoon.  There was a twosome in front of me – I drove up to the third tee and saw them driving back towards me.  I assumed correctly that they were going to waive me through or ask me to play up with them.

“You might as well hit – we have two of Willie’s boys in front of us and man are they slow.  I mean there are slow blacks, but these two are really slow blacks.”

The reference to “Willie” was a derisive comment towards our former Democratic Mayor who is held in low esteem by most.  Sadly, I knew right away that the reference was not to the golfers political party affiliation – I didn’t expect to see Bill Clinton and Al Gore in the group ahead.

I said nothing as I played through the bigots.  Ultimately, on the 5th hole, I played up with Mr. Griffin and Mr. Brown to discover that there was a foursome in front of them.  The foursome did not have any of “Willie’s friends” – they were just slow.

Frankly, I had the most enjoyable time on the course in quite some time.  Mr. Griffin, Mr. Brown and I played together from the 5th hole through the end of the round.  We even played through the slow foursome. On the 18th, we shook hands, exchanged numbers and will likely play again.

Having visited the National Civil Rights Museum earlier in the week, I was struck by the fact that despite how far we have come as a society, we have a long way to go.

Jordan Resnick

08/22/2009