Sharpton on Anchor's 'Lynch Tiger' Comment: Same as Imus

Jan. 10, 2008 — -- Kelly Tilghman, the Golf Channel anchor who during Friday's broadcast from the Mercedes-Benz Championship said while discussing Tiger Woods' dominance that young players on the PGA Tour should "lynch him in a back alley," was suspended two weeks Wednesday for the remark.

The move came after a wave of outrage that included a call for her to be fired by civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton and despite a statement from the Woods camp saying, "It is a complete non-issue."

Sharpton said the fact Woods did not call for punishment of Tilghman does not mean the comment was not offensive to African-Americans.

"That's the same thing Don Imus said," Sharpton said on CNN Headline News Wednesday, referring to the radio shock-jock's racially offensive comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team. "[He said] 'I want to talk to the Rutgers girls' and not talk about the insult he said on all blacks."

Sharpton said the issue of hanging strikes a raw nerve among African-Americans.

"If I got on this show and said I wanted to put some Jewish-American in a gas chamber, I don't care what context I said it in, the entire Jewish community would have the right to say I should be put off this show or my radio show if I said it there," Sharpton told CNN. "Or if I said I wanted to see a woman raped. This is an insult to all blacks. Lynching is not murder in general; it is not assault in general. It is a specific racial term."

The Golf Channel, which originally said there would be no punishment, changed its position less than three hours after Sharpton's remarks with a statement issued Wednesday night:

"The Golf Channel regrets the poorly chosen remarks made by Kelly Tilghman on a recent broadcast and, again, extends our apologies to anyone who was offended. There is simply no place on our network for offensive language like this. While we believe that Kelly's choice of words was inadvertent and that she did not intend them in an offensive manner, the words were hurtful and grossly inappropriate. Consequently, we have decided to suspend Kelly for two weeks, effective immediately."