>>>13-year-olds tying up a kindergartener, painting things on the wall? California has been multiracial for generations, so it’s not like he was the first dark-skinned kid in a school in Little Rock. It’s an insane story<<<
It is insane, but stuff like this does happen. I’m not sure what the racial make up of his school was, but if there were very few black kids, it is possible this could happen. The same thing is true of a white kid in a school that is nearly all black or all latino. Also, keep in mind this was 30 years ago. Despite all the race baiting, things have improved quite a bit since then.
Another scenario is this. Tiger tells a Barkley story about some white kids calling him racial slurs and maybe hitting him. Barkley embellishes it a bit (either intentionally or unintentionally) when he tells it to his ghostwriter. Then the ghostwriter exagerrates it a little more.
I will say this, IMO, there is a better chance that Tiger’s story is true than there is that the teacher’s claim of havign “migraines, high blood pressure and other ailments” and only refuting the story 5 years later because “she couldn’t get through to Tiger” (as opposed to it being because he is about to make a much hyped comeback after one of the most widely talked about scandals in history) is true.
Remember, when you consider the credibility of a teacher teacher, think UNION MEMBER. :)
I was born in Orange county, and have live my entire life here save for two years after college in nearby Long Beach, California. Let me tell you what is wrong with this story.
First, Cerritos Elementary is not in Cypress, but the nearby city of Cerritos, which is actually in Los Angeles County. It may be the writer meant to Cypress Elementary, which was in fact in Orange County, but I don’t know when it closed.
Second, the story is a second hand account from Charles Barkley, who is not the most impeccable of witnesses.
Third, another account states that Tiger claimed that his was “the only minority family in all of Cypress, California.” That is almost certainly false. I could check via old phone books to be sure but there were undoubtedly hispanic and asian families there at that time.
Fourth, if the incident happened on school grounds, there would have been adults around to watch the kids and it would have been seen. Kindergarten age kids are fenced off from the other grades around here, and someone would have know. It would NOT have been swept under the rug.
Fifth, Cypress was and is an upscale community and it’s unlikely anything like this would happen there.
Finally, I can cite certain incidents of racial animosity in Orange County over the years, but I know of NO examples of such things as are alleged in this story happening to ANY minority and that goes back over fifty years.