Fuzzy Zoeller vs. Tiger Woods

Zoeller's comments at the Masters: "That little boy is driving well and he's putting well. He's doing everything it takes to win. So, you know what you guys do when he gets in here? You pat him on the back and say congratulations and enjoy it and tell him not to serve fried chicken next year. Got it? Or collard greens or whatever the hell they serve." (CNN)

The news about Fuzzy Zoeller’s remarks toward Tiger Woods which became a controversy in America. Although he apologized for his comments and Woods accepted his apology, he lost his sponsorship and bowed out of the following golf tour. Zoeller accounted that he just made a joke. Yet people criticized him. When I saw this news, I also got some negative vibes from his remarks because he knew the words he used could be considered as racial terms. Moreover he made remarks at The Mater Tournament, which is one of the four major golf tournaments. I think that saying something racist in such a big event has a great deal of influence because lots of people watch it on TV. He shouldn’t have told an off-color joke, even if he tried to be funny.

However we can’t criticize only Zoeller because Woods also made a joke about African-Americans during the interview for a GQ article. It was a sexually distasteful joke. Woods asked the writer, Dave Anderson, not to write what he said; yet Anderson refused his request. (The New York Times, 1997)
In his article in The New York Times, Anderson compared Zoeller with Wood, and mentioned the difference of making racial jokes between in public appearances and among individuals. Then he argued that Woods needs to apologize as well as Zoeller.

I think that people can make jokes to be funny even off-color jokes if they use the jokes among individual toward people who know each other well and understand those jokes aren’t intended to hurt anyone.
It is difficult to set an obvious line among words. Some of those words are on the line because there is perception gap among people. Their feelings vary according to the situation: who speaks the word, where the word is used, how, and when.
I found complexity surrounding race issue from those two cases. It is so sensitive, especially saying something racial to people.

http://www.cnn.com/US/9704/21/fuzzy/

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/27/sports/tiger-woods-also-needs-to-apologize-for-distasteful-jokes.html?pagewanted=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aWS0StFM5I&feature=player_embedded

female composers

When I think about classical music composers, people who come into my head are all men, for example Mozart, Bach, Liszt, and so on.
I can’t name any female composers.
So I looked for information about classical composers, then I found an interesting perspective regarding how women who composed music in 19th century Europe suffered because of the male-dominated culture.
Of those women, Fanny Mendelssohn is the person I was interested in.
Fanny Mendelssohn (1805-1847) was brought up in a wealthy family and got a good education in music, language, and philosophy.
Her brother is Felix Mendelssohn, known as a famous classical composer.
Fanny and Felix showed their talent for music; however, their father limited her creative musical activity. Although she created fantastic music, the society didn't readily accept women as composers, though they did as instrumentalists. Therefore she published her pieces under the name of her brother.
Finally, in 1846, she published her works under her own name.
She died in 1847 during the rehearsal of her brother’s cantata. It was only a year after publishing under her name.
She had a gift and passion for music. She was praised for her creative activity; however, she couldn't go mainstream as a composer because of the male-dominated culture.
Though Fanny faced the difficulty of being a composer, she kept doing what she wanted to do. I appreciate her strength.


https://www.essentialsofmusic.com/