Joe Hooks, mini-tour player
I’ve been thinking about what talk I will have with friends who haven’t spoken out or haven’t said anything on their social media that they use all the time, and they’re vocal about all types of things. Yet they choose to be quiet about what’s going on now. I am talking about my white friends that play professionally as well, really good players. I guess the issue is I know that they’re my friends, and I know the amount of respect that they have for me, but do they have respect for the overall struggle, for the overall issues of people like me. That’s two totally separate things.
If you think something is wrong, and you vocalize that you believe it’s wrong, you can be the catalyst to give other people courage to do the same. That’s the cycle that we need to really get going. We need white males especially to continue to voice that this is wrong and this is right. I’m sorry but this isn’t a matter of picking sides. It’s a matter of human rights.
I used to caddie at the Concession Golf Club. That was an opportunity to have somewhere to play and give me the funds necessary to live in Florida while I get in the groove of professional golf and not being at home. The experiences I had there were more good than bad. I guess one thing that always bothered me was members and guests would feel so comfortable asking me large generalized questions about myself as a black man. Do I play basketball? What sports do you play? They always start with basketball. Plenty of guys never really thought to consider the possibility that I might be a golfer. Maybe I grew up playing golf. Or that maybe I grew up at a private country club like I did. I grew up at Detroit Golf Club, where the Rocket Mortgage (Classic) is now held. My dad came from extreme poverty. He worked his way up through the supermarket industry and he was able to provide that for our family. Mentioning that was always this mind-boggling thing (to members). It almost made me all right with them – like OK, I like him. That’s like the most basic thing that is a matter of, in my opinion, white privilege. A lot of people, especially white males, they lack the ability to put themselves in somebody else’s shoes before speaking.
I grew up dealing with that at Detroit Golf Club, too. I’m like one of the few that was born in the club, yet I still had guests and occasional members talking to me as if I worked there, assuming that I worked there.
I do have faith. I do believe in a higher power, and I feel like some of this unfortunate destruction at the end of the day, might very well be necessary to get people to say, oh damn, we’ve got to figure out a way to not let this happen again. It’s just so painful to see all these people going through different issues that are mostly a direct result of the core issue – which has always been racial injustice in the country.