Ever since the Tiger Woods saga began, there have been a number of racist articles coming out — calling Tiger Woods racist for his choice of mistresses, or calling Americans racist for their interest in the scandal, etc. But none of them shocked me quite as much as this one did.

The revelations went from every day to every hour after Eldrick Tont Woods slammed his Escalade into that fire hydrant and tree during Thanksgiving Weekend. Now there isn’t a nanosecond that passes without something else happening in the suddenly endless soap opera called As The Tiger Goes From Roaring to Purring.

This feels like that O.J. thing.

Not only that, the coverage of Michael Vick’s dogfighting issues was in the vicinity of white Broncos, bloody gloves and Johnny Cochran.

To a lesser extent, there were those controversies for the Keeping It Real King named Allen Iverson, otherwise known as A.I., or The Answer, or just plain trouble, especially since he wasn’t practicing. There also was that other initials guy, T.O., and his messes, combined with those of other NFL knuckleheads of yore, ranging from Randy Moss to Chad Whatever He Wishes To Be Called These Days.

Oh, and Barry Bonds was heavily scrutinized after word surfaced that he ripped home runs by doing more than just eating all of his vegetables.

Here’s my point: During the early and intense stretches when the media continued to spend every news cycle exposing the personal flaws of O.J., Vick, Iverson and the rest, there was a different response inside the African-American community to those athletes who happen to be black compared to its response to Woods who happens to be, well, I’ll get to that in a moment.

Those other athletes had one of the world’s most supportive casts. They had an overwhelming number of folks in the African-American community standing firmly and loudly behind them — no matter what. They had Jesse and Al waiting to pounce in the background, if they hadn’t done so already. They had black ministers across the country asking for special prayers in their name. They had folks in barbershops throughout African-American communities talking about conspiracies.

Mostly, despite everything those in black America had seen or heard about the events surrounding O.J., Vick, Iverson and the rest, they had unconditional love.

For Woods, not so much.

Actually, not at all, and Woods has nobody to blame but Woods.

It goes back to April 1997 when he famously took a nine-iron to the face of blacks by telling Oprah Winfrey on her couch that he wasn’t black. He said he wasn’t white, either. He said, given that his father is black and that his mother is Asian, he spent his youth inventing a word for himself called “Cablinasian.”

Just like that, in the hearts of many African-Americans, Woods was on his own. They still cherished his splendid journey in search of becoming more prolific than Bobby Jones, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. That’s because they still viewed Tiger as black, whether he liked it or not. It’s just that, despite O.J. and Bonds, for instance, who joined Woods in having mixed marriages to the chagrin of some, and despite O.J. and Bonds going to extremes to project colorless images throughout their careers, they never pushed away their African-American heritage in a dramatic way.

Tiger did. In fact, he did so by mentioning that Cablinasian silliness with his black father smiling by his side on national television.

I was among a slew of African-Americans who weren’t amused back then, and I wrote as much as a sports columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Journal Constitution. The headline said everything you need to know about the tone of my column: “Wake up, Tiger. This is America and that means you’re black.”

… To translate: Zoeller thought Woods was black — you know, whether Woods liked it or not, and that’s what I said on Oprah’s show. In addition, I repeated what I wrote for the Atlanta newspaper, “Tiger Woods is fooling himself to think that just because he’s Tiger Woods, he has transcended everything else in society. This is the real world, and in the real world of America, the one-drop rule still applies.

In the old days, there used to be laws on the books that said, if you have one drop of black blood in you, you are black. Well, that’s still unofficially the case in the minds of many in America. One drop of black blood, and you’re black.

“Tiger, you’re not green. You’re not yellow. You’re not purple. You’re not Asian. You’re not Cablinasian. You’re black.”

Commentary like this sets race relations back 100 years.

First, there’s the admission that people like OJ Simpson and Michael Vick are absolved for their crimes by the black community — simply for being black. Apparently, in Mr. Moore’s book it’s perfectly OK to murder a white man and a white women, to torture and kill dogs, to cheat on your spouse with multiple partners — as long as you are black. No matter how guilty you are, you’re innocent just because of the color of your skin. And if only Tiger Woods had defined himself solely by a specific part of his heritage and ignored the rest, then he could’ve had the backing of Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and the entire black community. They would’ve defended him no matter how bad his “transgressions”. OJ Simpson got off, even though he was clearly guilty, because the black community rallied behind him. No matter than two innocent people were killed in cold blood. He was black, and so the black community absolved him. Michael Vick is playing in the NFL, despite the horrible things he admitted to doing, because the black community rallied behind him. No matter that countless innocent creatures were tortured and killed. He was black, and so he as well was absolved.

Tell me: is this really something to brag about? I don’t think so.

On top of this ludicrous drivel, there’s the anger over Tiger Woods not solely identifying himself as black. Apparently, this is a horrible sin to commit against blacks. Nevermind that Tiger Woods is more Asian than anything else — black people say he’s black, and so he must worship at the altar of black America, forever defining yourself by nothing more than your skin color.

Heaven forbid that Tiger Woods actually define himself by something deeper than the pigmentation of his skin!

One would think that this attitude would set us further back in our race relations. I wonder what this columnist, Terence Moore, would say about the ideals of Martin Luther King, Jr. Most blacks look up to him as a role model. Heck, most Americans do, regardless of color. Yet Mr. Moore, and plenty of other black commentators have completely ignored what King stood for. Martin Luther King didn’t want anyone to be judged on their race. He believed in an America where each of us would be judged by the content of our character, not the color of our skin. Yet, since this Tiger Woods scandal broke — and in countless other cases before this — we’ve seen so many blacks furious that Tiger Woods insists on not being labeled. They claim to want to live in a post-racial society, but continually want everything to be based on race. Tiger Woods is not a black man; he’s about as multi-racial as a person can come, and he doesn’t define himself by his skin color. This is something he should be applauded for. Couldn’t black parents use this as a teachable moment for their children rather than shunning him as some kind of traitor? They could use Tiger Woods as an example of how you don’t have to be defined by your race, that who you are is more important. Instead, according to the brouhaha swirling around the various racial aspects of the Tiger Woods scandal, black people should be defined first and foremost by their race. This will do nothing but set blacks back decades in race relations, because they’re mentally handicapping themselves. There’s not much that Tiger Woods has done that he should be praised for, but certainly, rising above the color of his skin is one of them. Shame on these race hustlers. Are they honestly trying to keep blacks permanently crippled? What are they afraid of — that blacks might value themselves beyond just their skin color?

Tiger Woods has plenty to be criticized for. Not defining himself by his race isn’t one of them.