Just one day after Kelly Tilghman made her now infamous “lynch him in the back alley” comment about Tiger Woods a female news announcer in Korea made a gaffe that, while not very similar in context or meaning, should still be viewed next to Tilghman’s remark. Unlike Tilghman, the Korean announcer (who works for MBC, one of Korea’s major networks) has come under fire and has been removed from her position.

I won’t comment on whether Tilghman’s remark is grounds for a similar reaction, punishment, or not. Jackson has done that in the post below. Race issues are complicated in America. Not so much where I live in Korea. I don’t necessarily blame people for just wanting to pretend it didn’t occur, which is what I believe is happening.

The context of the Korean announcer’s gaffe is a tragic fire in Inchon where forty workers were killed after nearly completed cold-storage warehouse caught fire. Following an update on the situation at the end of the newscast, as they always do, the announcers said a farewell greeting and bowed to the camera.

But you can see here on the clip the announcer, Moon Ji-hae, is having trouble keeping it in and as she says goodnight she begins to laugh. By the time her head is down she’s downright giggly. As the newscast fades to commercial we see the two announcers turn and comment to each other, just as you’ve probably seen on blooper shows throughout your life.Like I said, Moon was severely repremanded for this. The outcry from the public has been incredible and Korean netizens have been setting message boards aflame since the incident happened yesterday.

Yeah, people are looking for a scapegoat. This is nothing new. Conversely, in America no one is looking for a scapegoat, or really looking for much of anything at all. One can’t help but wonder if the public reactions ought to be reversed. Should Tilghman be fired? Hard to say. Should she be be sweating bullets for the next few weeks for saying what she did? Sure.

To her credit Tilghman came out and immediately made a public apology. Taking a leave of absence would have been a good way to go, but the Golf Channel has suspended Tilghman — for two weeks.

It doesn’t matter if it was a Freudian slip (which it likely was), the woman said something horrendous and she said in the context of a joke. She said the worst thing she could have said short of using the ‘n’ word. As a joke.

Unfortunately the following clip of Tilghman is the best available. Some idiots have stuttered the ending on this, perhaps unintentionally mirroring the attitude of the American public on this event.

Of course this isn’t the first time controversy has sprouted on golf’s well-tended greens. For my money the following is the most offensive thing you’ll find on this page, but this too was essentially blown off, partyly diffused by remarks made by Woods the following week.

Perhaps it’s to Woods’ credit that he takes these things in stride. “I’m sure Fuz didn’t mean anything derogatory,” Woods told the New York Times the following week, “as a matter of fact, I thought it was funny.”

Maybe it’s funny to Tiger, or maybe it wasn’t at all. Would an announcer say something like what ol’ Fuz said? What would happen if they did? Well, you’d assume they’d be fired, but how different was Tilghman’s remark? Jimmy the Greek was fired for saying things he claimed were jokes — or at least meant to not be taken racially.

For some historical perspective lets take a look at one of the Greek’s “highlights.” This isn’t the comment that got him fired, but rather something he said down the road when he was letting all his witticisms hang out there.

So what’s the meaning of these four clips? As I said before I’m not here to give my opinion. But I think nonetheless it’s important that these four clips be viewed and considered side by side before this Tilghman thing disappears off the radar forever. Which, I’m guessing will happen around this weekend.