By William Kirkendale
Thirty years ago before Tiger Woods there was an unwritten law in the United States that Jews and People of color were not welcome at private country clubs. They were all purposely excluded from being members.
Well it so happened that I grew up as a member of a very prestigious segregated country club on Long Island. One day in my early thirties after witnessing a lot of severe racial and religious tension and cross burning problems on Long Island I began questioning this country club practice of the exclusion of Blacks and Jews as members or even guests.
To make a long story short when I protested to the powers to be at my own club my long standing membership was summarily
terminated because they said after 20 years of playing golf with a single digit handicap I played "too slow"... Now how absurd was that? Not only were their exclusionary rules of admission absurd but their reasons for terminating me for speaking out against these rules were even more absurd...
So did this story have a happy ending? For me it did as I was proclaimed a national hero by the press for what i did and I cleaned out the club's bank account for a six figure judgement against them from my discrimination lawsuit....And for the country it also turned out pretty good as there are only a handful of redneck private clubs that still continue on with this absurdity. And, of course, the irony of ironies is that today we have the best golfer in the world who is black and would never have qualified to be a member of my club back in 1979 let alone be invited to play a round of golf..Didn't win many Right wing friends back then but can take pride 30 years later that I stood up and fought that ridiculous absurdity of my time with everything I had.
William Kirkendale
www.ficofraud.com
July 4th 2012
No comments:
Post a Comment