Dr. Ronald Kates is associate professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University.

Kates has published widely in the sports literature field, including pieces in Nine and Aethlon. A fan of all sports, he has succeeded in engrossing his 9 year old in all things baseball, particularly all things Braves.

Dr. Ronald Kates

Tiger on the Wall: African-American Middle-Class Identity in Wilsons Radio Golf

Throughout his cycle of plays depicting AfricanAmerican life in the twentieth-century, August Wilson introduced audiences to mill workers, musicians, embittered ex-Negro Leaguers, diner owners, jitney drivers, men who travel, and men who seek out others. Or, as Peter Marks defines them, out-of-the-way people . . . who rarely get starring roles in life, let alone on the stage. Forgotten people, yes. But never forgettable (C1). Indeed, save for references to Malcom X in Two Trains Running and a handful of period-relevant baseball players in Fences, Wilson rarely includes universally-recognized popular culture icons in his plays. Thus his inclusion of a Tiger Woods poster as a prop in his final play Radio Golf raises some particularly culturally-significant questions concerning the role of the African-American middle class, an issue Wilson largely avoids in his series of plays. As Chicago Sun-Times Theater Critic Hedy Weiss suggested in a review of Radio Golf, the play is about the emergence of a powerful black moneyed class that began to flower in the 1990s, as college educated blacks began taking their place in banks and boardrooms and high political offices. But it is also a stern warning to that new bourgeoisie that it is still on shaky ground and ever-ripe for corruption, and that if those who have made it deny their history and forget their fellow blacks who have failed to rise they will only end up fooling themselves (42). In one sense, both Radio Golf protagonists, real-estate developer and Pittsburgh mayoral candidate Harmond Wilks and Mellon Bank vice-president Roosevelt Hicks have

Editors Note: Katess essay, like Wilsons play, was written before Woodss 2009 sex scandal.

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made it, by achieving the financial independence and outward economic success that had largely eluded their predecessors in the other plays within Wilsons cycle. Rather than having to speculate what redevelopment would do to Pittsburghs traditionally African-American Hill District, a theme that engrossed characters in Two Trains Running (set in the 1960s) and Jitney (set in the 1970s), Roosevelt and Harmond have become the driving agents of the redevelopment, prodding the city council to declare the neighborhood as blighted, courting the big name companies to come fill their storefronts, all the while pursuing newly attainable personal goals. In the first scene, Roosevelt puts up a poster of golfer Tiger Woods shortly after he enters the office of Bedford Hills Redevelopment, Inc, the corporation the longtime friends and college roommates have created to raze and re-create the Hill District. The gesture is deliberate like Woods, Roosevelt and Harmond stand as outward symbols of African-American success; indeed, whereas the Radio Golf characters must balance the needs of their community with the often blind financial desires of the unseen white business world, Woods must similarly defend himself against criticism that he has poured his energies into winning tournaments, making appearances for his sponsors and developing plans to construct courses funded by oil money rather than seeking to effect change (Evans 40). The question of responsibility to ones history and background permeates not just Radio Golf but also any number of urban-related issues. Should, for instance, athletes or entertainers who grew up in urban areas automatically give back to their old neighborhoods (as a tithe-like gesture), or are they best served to steer clear lest they encounter trouble of the worst sort (as seen by the recent murders of Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor and relatives of actress Jennifer Hudson)? Provocatively maintaining that the African-American athlete has been exploited literally throughout the history of American sports, William C.

Rhoden, an African-American journalist and former college athlete, investigates the intersection of the African-American athlete and American culture, as well as this concept of responsibility in his New York Times bestseller Forty Million Dollar Slaves. In criticizing contemporary athletes for squandering the best opportunities yet for acquiring real power in the sports industry (2), Rhoden illuminates a point that also reverberates throughout Radio Golf. For example, in discussing Michael Jordan, Rhoden maintains the essence of Jordans legacy is what he accomplished; the tragedy is what he could have done (196). Jordans agent David Falk casts the basketball player in a raceless mold that in a sense absolves Jordan from responsibilities to any particular group: I dont think people look at Michael Jordan anymore and say hes a black superstar. They say hes a superstar. They totally accepted him into the mainstream. Before he got there he might have been African American, but once he arrived, he had such a high level of acceptance that I think the description goes away(qtd. in Rhoden 204). At the beginning of Radio Golf, both Harmond and Roosevelt aspire to this same sort of colorless identity achieved by only the upper echelon of minority athletes like Jordan and media personalities, a point illustrated by the public image they each project. Yet throughout the play both must reconcile their own desires with what the public expects from them as African-American men in positions of power, and the image of Woods that Roosevelt affixes to their office wall contributes purposefully to the plays consideration of this dilemma. Indeed, Harmonds declaration that, Im going to be the mayor of everybody. Its not about being white or black, its about being American (56) bears striking similarities to Tiger Woodss repudiation of his African American heritage, insisting instead in 1997 that he is Cablinasian (qtd. in Evans 16), his self-constructed acknowledgement of his 1/4 Black, 1/4 Chinese, 1/4 Thai, 1/8 White, and 1/8 American Indian heritage (Tigers Dilemma 28). As Ellis

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Cashmore points out, strenuously as Woods tried to repudiate blackness, it was this very aspect that helped establish him as one of the worlds foremost celebrities and a regular on Forbes highest earners list (626). Like Harmond and Roosevelt to an extent Woods has had to continually fight the expectation that his blackness somehow requires him to address problems in an urban America of which he had never been a part. In his thesis, Rhoden calls black athletes lost (1), maintaining that A sense of being part of a larger cause has historically permeated nearly every action of the black athlete . . . their victories were fueled in part by the notion that they represented something larger than themselves, yet today, when so many black athletes have little or no sense of who or what came before, there is no sense of the athlete as part of a larger community, as a foot soldier in a larger struggle (3). Woods, therefore, faces a similar dichotomy as Harmond and Roosevelt in attempting to meet the expectations of the larger African-American community: while Woods pursues selected philanthropic ventures both within and outside of predominately African-American communities, Roosevelt and Harmond initially maintain the premise that a re-developed neighborhood featuring Whole Foods, Starbucks, and Barnes & Noble will undoubtedly benefit the surrounding residents because they perceive this is what the residents want. While Roosevelt and Harmond certainly benefit from opportunities to pursue higher education and, in Harmonds case, to join a long-established family realty business, each has initially chosen to adopt a business agenda rather than a social ethos as a guiding force in life, in the process both creating, or fashioning identities that enable them to broker multimillion dollar redevelopment deals, run for mayor (in Harmonds case), and play golf with media moguls (in Roosevelts case). These identities, however, do not initially allow them to perceive their role in the larger AfricanAmerican community in the Hill District, in

Pittsburgh, and in America. In this way they occupy, like black athletes, an ambiguous space between two clearly defined poles of AfricanAmerican experience. By imposing his identity as a golfer upon the audience, as well as the other characters he encounters in the play, Roosevelt thinks that he controls not just how others perceive him, but also how they interact with him. From the beginning of the play, when he reminisces to Harmond -- but moreso for the benefit of the audience -- on golfs meaning to him, Roosevelt indelibly ties his identity to the sport: I hit my first golf ball I asked myself where have I been? Howd I miss this? I couldnt believe it. I felt free. Truly free. For the first time. I watched the ball soar down the driving range. I didnt think it could go so high. It just kept going higher and higher. I felt something lift off of me. Some weight I was carrying around and didnt know it. I felt the world was open to me. Everything and everybody. I never did feel exactly like that anymore. I must have hit a hundred golf balls trying to get that feel ing. But that first time was worth everything. I felt like I had my dick in my hand and was waving it around like a club. Im a man! Anybody want some of this come and get it. That was the best feeling of my life. . . . I keep looking for that feeling.(13) Roosevelts compulsions extend to keeping his clubs in the trunk of his car just in case I drive by a golf course, and creating golf camps for kids so they can share his positive experiences, because he feels that golf [will] give them a chance at life. I wish somebody had come along and taught me how to play golf when I was ten. Thatll set you on a path to life where everything is open to you. You dont have to crawl under a rock just cause you black. Feel like you dont belong in the world (13). A number of characters from Wilsons other cycle plays have shared a similar lament, that without some defining element in their lives musical, spiritual, or social the feelings of oppression just become

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too great. That said, such pronouncements ring hollow from someone like Roosevelt who has, after all, achieved the economic stability that eludes the wide majority of Wilsons other characters. To Roosevelt, the opportunity to play golf with media mogul Bernie Smith outweighs the distinct possibility that the invitation he receives in 1.3 comes with caveats. While he shoots a great round and, as he tells Harmond, from the minute I set foot in Cedar Oaks Golf Course it was made clear my money was no good there (35), what he perceives as his transformative moment comes in the clubhouse following the round when then I look up and it was just me and Bernie sitting there. Man to Man. I thought to myself this is where Ive been trying to get to my whole life. And then it happened. Bernie Smith wants to partner with me to buy WBTZ radio (36). As Harmond and Roosevelt continue to discuss this opportunity, Roosevelt reveals that Bernie Smith has brought him aboard because The FCC offers a Minority Tax Certificate (36). As golfer-businessman, Roosevelt believes he essentially has to take the offer Bernie Smith makes him if he wants to maintain his faade, to keep that place at the center of the table (35). His response to Harmond reveals the extent to which Roosevelts business agenda outweighs his conscience, as he asserts, This is business, this is the way its done in America . . . I dont care if somebody else makes some money cause of a tax break. I get mine and they get theirs . . . the window of opportunity is already starting to close (37). One scene later a seemingly innocuous conversation between Harmond and Roosevelt offers the audience a sharper perspective of Roosevelts desire to succeed personally at all costs. While discussing contingency plans for their development project in case the city declines to declare the Hill District as a blighted area, Roosevelt suggests if the blight dont come through and we dont get the fed money, we can bring Bernie in as a partner. I already felt him out and I know I can get him to go for

it. To which Harmond incredulously replies No shit hed go for it. Bernie would love to get a piece of Bedford Hills. Hed have it so hed be making money three ways. Owning a part of the development, hiring his own construction firm and selling us all the supplies. Bedford Hills isnt going in Bernie Smiths pocket (47). By the end of the play, in a sequence I will discuss in detail below, Roosevelt has brought in Bernie Smith as a partner to buy out Harmond, in the process further detaching himself from his friends and community in the name of business. Yet he has presumably preserved his place in Bernie Smiths foursome, as well as a spot at the center of the table at the 19th hole, in the process achieving a close approximation of that feeling (13) -- rooted in his passion for golf - he has pursued for years. While Roosevelt continually plays golf, talks about playing golf, records his radio show about golf, and practices his golf swing, Harmond does not embrace the sport in the same manner, continually rebuffing Roosevelts call to go play a round. But while Roosevelt hits the links far from the Hill district, Harmond reconnects with his community through Sterling Johnson, a neighborhood handyman who grew up with Harmond and his brother, and Old Joe Barlow, a drifter and distant cousin who has returned to claim a house destined for demolition as part of the Bedford Hills project. Old Joes house, 1839 Wylie Avenue, was once the residence of Aunt Ester, the 366 year old conjure woman who appears in seven of the ten cycle plays (Wilson, Ester 30). Thinking the house abandoned, and not caring to research its ownership or history, Harmond and Bedford Hills buy the house illegally from the city before it went to auction. As Harmond uncovers the facts that both his father and grandfather had paid the taxes on the house for decades, that he and Old Joe are related he comes to the conclusion that perhaps historic preservation should trump blind progress and commissions a redrawing of the project that includes a preserved and restored 1839 Wylie

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as part of the proposal. In pushing this agenda, Harmond sabotages his mayoral campaign, pushes his marriage to the brink, and ends his friendship with Roosevelt, but he has done so perhaps for the first time in his life wholly on his own initiative, and with a moral clarity that places him in a different sphere than Roosevelt, the ambitious golfer and businessman. Whereas Roosevelts time on the golf course with Bernie Smith leads him away from the community, the time Harmond spends with Sterling and Old Joe brings him perhaps for the first time in his life to value and connect with the very community his development will destroy, as well as his identity as an authentic African-American scion of that community. After discovering his family history with Old Joe, in the process internalizing his connection with the community, Harmond tells his wife that he wants to move back in the house he grew up in (66), to which she responds, I cant move back here. . . I dont want to go backward. I wasnt born backward. Youd be surprised how many white people think all black people live in the Hill (66-67). At the crux of Radio Golf indeed at the center of the conflict between Harmond and Roosevelt lies the question of responsibility in maintaining a community or re-shaping it to meet contemporary (i.e. outsider) needs. When Harmond tells Sterling Were going to bring the Hill back, Sterling responds How you gonna bring it back? Its dead. It take Jesus Christ to bring it back. What you mean is you gonna put something else in its place. Say that. But dont talk about bringing the Hill back. The Hill District is dead (15). Prior to Old Joe appearing in the Bedford Hills Redevelopment, Inc. office, which begins Harmonds interest in the history of 1839 Wylie and leads to his discovery of kinship with the older man, neither Harmond nor Roosevelt had confronted the human element as they created their plans for their Bedford Hills. Roosevelt believes he has a responsibility to Whole Foods, Starbucks, and Barnes & Noble that the development site declared blighted by the city appear devoid of

any urban trappings (rundown buildings, poor people) that might otherwise threaten the shopping experience of those who can afford to trade at the stores in the new Bedford Hills. As someone who has not grown up in the Hill District, Roosevelt can to an extent -- separate himself from criticism that this development would destroy a culturally significant area, no matter how rundown it may appear. Rhoden, however, would maintain that such a successful African-American developer should approach a project of this magnitude with a sense of civic responsibility, regardless to his connection to the site. In the final chapter of Forty Million Dollar Slaves, Rhoden details the career of Robert Johnson, the BET founder who sold his network to Viacom for $3 billion and eventually bought the NBAs Charlotte Bobcats. While mentioning Johnsons intent to create BET as a network that would be, in his words, both uplifting and social (249), Rhoden asserts that Johnsons BET bamboozled AfricanAmericans by upholding and even reinforcing media projections that have typically been controlled by white people and distorted beyond recognition (249). Indeed, as Rhoden concludes, given a shot at reclaiming the black image from [the] history of distortion and insult, Bob Johnson only proved that a black man could put on a minstrel show as well as anybody (251). Much like Johnson, who Rhoden believes should have sold BET for less money to an African American led group, and also who used race to persuade NBA owners to award him a franchise in the first place(254), Roosevelt has managed to convince himself that the within identity he has fashioned, the golfcrazy financially-savvy businessman, he can, as Rhoden describes Johnson, (use) blackness as a way to get a piece of the pie without necessarily feeling any reciprocal responsibility to sustain black institutions (256). Ultimately, Rhoden asks of Johnson, Is the core of his being black or green (252), a question that stands at the core of Radio Golf as well as debates over the

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responsibility of the black athlete and middle class. While Wilson wrote Radio Golf in 2005, finishing the play only months before his death, his concerns with how African-Americans function within and in conflict with a white-dominated American world appear not just in his cycle, but also in interviews and other works about him. Indeed, Conversations with August Wilson, the compilation of twenty years of interviews with Wilson by both black and white writers writing for large and small audiences, certainly reveals the breadth of his concerns. As far back as 1984, just as he had begun to write the plays that would comprise his twentieth century cycle of African-American life, he maintained I think blacks in America need to reexamine their time spent here to see the choices that were made as a people (qtd. in Powers 5), and understand, as he intimated four years later in an interview with Bill Moyers, Theres no way that you can dispute the fact that we are African people , and we have a culture thats separate and distinct from the mainstream white American culture. We have different philosophical ideas, different ways of responding to the world, different ideas and attitudes, different values . . . the way that we participate in life is very much different than white America (qtd. in Moyers 68-69). Those African Americans like Harmond and Roosevelt who choose to pursue a life and career in a field dominated by a race other than their own must face the decision of whether or not to maintain what Wilson refers to as their Africanness (qtd. in Savran 27) because, as he points out to Moyers, the social contract that white America has given blacks is that if you want to participate in society, you have to deny who you are(76). In short, for African-Americans to be successful in America means that they must choose to occupy a liminal space. Other than supporting characters sprinkled throughout the cycle, Harmond and Roosevelt have no middle or upper-middle class peers among the others populating Wilsons

cycle plays, certainly none who would enjoy playing golf. Wilson clearly uses these two characters to reveal a larger message concerning what he sees as the primary conflict within African Americans. In a 1997 interview with Bonnie Lyons perhaps not coincidentally the same year in which he sets Radio Golf Wilson maintained Today I would say that the conflict in black America is between the middle class and the so-called underclass, and that conflict goes back to those who deny themselves and those who arent willing to. . . . Most blacks in the ghettos say, If I got to give up who I am, if I cant be like me, then I dont want it. The ones who accept it go on to become part of the growing black middle class and in some areas even acquire power and participation in society, but when they arrive, they are no longer the same people. They are clothed in different manners and ways of life, different thoughts and ideas. Theyve acculturated and adopted white values. (206) Reviews of Radio Golf suggest that Wilsons message still carries relevance a decade later, at a time in which African Americans have continued to make social and economic gains, as several critics allude to Wilsons portrayal of the acculturation of the black middle class. As The New York Times Ben Brantley notes, As Mr. Wilson portrays them, the 1990s are an arid, soul-sapping time for the black man. This is because his characters at last have the chance to enter the white mans kingdom of money, stocks and bonds and real estate and takeovers and, oh yes, the moneymakers favorite pastime, golf (Progress E1). These characters, as Brantley suggests in another review, have lost their natural voices. In Mr. Wilsons world, thats the same thing as losing their souls, a metaphor he extends when he refers to Harmond as a Faust torn between the forces of the past that shaped him and a perilously seductive future, to which Roosevelt plays the role as Harmonds

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personal Mephistopheles (Blues B11). Wilson builds the action of the play to the final conflict between the friends, a divide that centers not just on decisions impacting the Bedford Hills development, but increasingly upon the philosophies that have impacted the respective identities of the two men. Within their conflict, Harmond and Roosevelt define one another at polarized ends of an ambiguous space, thus enabling them to better define themselves. And in the process, one could argue, each fully discovers the voice that has eluded them throughout the play. Roosevelt reacts defensively to Harmonds accusation that Bernie Smith has treated Roosevelt like one of them high-class thousand dollar whores, asserting just because shit didnt go your way you just cant go and call me out my name. My name is Roosevelt Hicks. I am part owner of WBTZ radio, and I am not anybodys whore (80). Harmond, however, has his own realization about his place in the whitedominated business world, that for AfricanAmericans like him and Roosevelt, the rules change every day. You got to change with them . . . [but] they keep making up the rules as you go along. They keep changing the maps. Then you realize youre never going to get to the center its all a house of cards . . . I dont want to live my life like that, Roosevelt (79). Rather than acknowledge his friends emotional realization, Roosevelt responds in a business-centered fashion: Im buying you out cause you jeopardized our project when you started all this shit about that goddamn house(80), thus failing to see the human element in his friend Harmonds awakening as a culturally grounded African American. Tellingly, the stage directions following this exchange offer further insight into Harmonds mindset, as he takes down the Tiger Woods poster from the wall and gives it to Roosevelt as the latter heads for the door: Here. Take this with you (81). Certainly on the most basic level Harmond wishes to give Roosevelt, with whom he shares a genuine and painful good-

bye(81) the poster, which after all likely means more to the avid golfer than it would to Harmond. But considering the absence of popular culture icons used as props or even mentioned more than in passing in the other cycle plays, perhaps Wilson is using the image of the successful black athlete one of the final moments of his entire cycle to make a powerful statement about Africanness, identity, and responsibility. Wilson never publically commented on Tiger Woods as an accomplished golfer, Nike pitchman, or race neutral Cablinasian, yet Harmonds manner in handing over the poster suggests a negative connotation, as if Woods is more closely associated with Roosevelt and all he stands for. By remaining largely enigmatic over his decade of golf dominance, Woods has fashioned (or rather, has worked with a team of media experts to fashion or tailor) an identity of athletic excellence paired with an off-thecharts Q-score. In 2005, Bill Plaschke from the Los Angeles Times wrote Woods is not simply a golfer anymore. He is Microsoft, he is Coke, he is Steinbrenner, and that isnt fun. He is not as beloved as much he is feared . . . he certainly needs to be more human. While Plaschke received a good deal of criticism for his statements, there is no denying the careful construction of Woodss identity in an ambiguous cultural space. As Cashmore relates, Woods identity or character might have been formed by a particular period or context, but it is not Woods the person but rather the descriptions, images, and sounds of Woods, and how they are communicated that makes the product. These are practically independent of the flesh-andblood man himself. They depict a personalized reproduction of America (623). While Roosevelt may relate to how the 1997 Woods could seamlessly rise to the top of the corporate pitch charts following his Masters victory, Wilson seems to have imbued Harmond with a decades worth of hindsight in his repudiation of the golfer. In Harmonds new world, one in which he shows a willingness to embrace his

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past, his community, and presumably his Africanness, he has no place for those who fashion identities that resist or deny those facets of their lives, values he seemingly has assigned to the up-and-coming Woods rather than the accomplished veteran. While Roosevelt apparently succeeds on the financial level at the plays

end, Rhoden would likely argue that Harmond, too, has triumphed by understanding like the pioneering black athletes that he represented something larger than [himself] by becoming a committed member of the larger community, a foot soldier in a larger struggle (3).

Works Cited
Black America and Tigers Dilemma: National Leaders Praise Golfers Accomplishments and Debate Controversial Mixed Race Issue. Ebony 52 (1997): 28. Brantley, Ben. Voices Warped by the Business Blues. The New York Times 30 Apr. 2005, late ed., sec. B: 11. Lexis Nexis Academic. Web. 4 Dec. 2008. Brantley, Ben. In Rush to Progress, the Past is Never Too Far Behind. The New York Times 9 May 2007, late ed., sec. E: 1. Lexis Nexis Academic. Web. 4 Dec. 2008. Cashmore, Ellis. Tiger Woods and the New Racial Order. Current Sociology 56 (2008): 621-634. Evans, Farrell. Color Code. (SI Bonus Section: Golf Plus; 2007 Masters; Teeing Off: Views and Voices /My Shot)." Sports Illustrated 16 Apr. 2007: G40. General OneFile. Web. 4 Dec. 2008. Lyons, Bonnie An Interview with August Wilson. Contemporary Literature 40 (1999): 1-21.Conversations with August Wilson. Eds. Jackson R. Bryer and Mary C. Hartig. Jackson: U of Mississippi P, 2006. 204-222. Marks, Peter. A Man of Great Characters; Wilson Let the Lowly Have Their Say. This Month, Theyll Be Heard. The Washington Post 3 March 2008: C1. Lexis Nexis Academic. Web. 11 Dec. 2008. Moyers, Bill. August Wilson: Playwright. Bill Moyers: A World of Ideas Conversations with Thoughtful Men and Women About American Life today and the Ideas Shaping Our Future. New York: Doubleday, 1989: 167-80. Conversations with August Wilson. Eds. Jackson R. Bryer and Mary C. Hartig. Jackson: U of Mississippi P, 2006. 61-80. Plaschke, Bill. Hes Too Good to Be Truly Loved, and Thats Too Bad. Los Angeles Times 18 July 2005: D1. Web. 16 February 2009. Powers, Kim. An Interview with August Wilson. Theater 16 (1984): 50-55. Conversations with August Wilson. Eds. Jackson R. Bryer and Mary C. Hartig. Jackson: U of Mississippi P, 2006. 3-11. Rhoden, William C. Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2006. Savran, David. August Wilson. In Their Own Words: Contemporary American Playwrights. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1988. 288-305. Conversations with August Wilson. Eds. Jackson R. Bryer and Mary C. Hartig. Jackson: U of Mississippi P, 2006. 19-37. Weiss, Hedy. Golf is Wilson par excellence: Play drives home authors vision of black America. Chicago SunTimes 24 Jan. 2007: 42. Lexis Nexis Academic. Web. 4 Dec. 2008. Wilson, August. Aunt Esters Children: A Century on Stage. American Theatre 22 (2005): 26-31. Wilson, August. Radio Golf. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2007.

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