“They” Alert

Women’s golf doesn’t get much media attention, especially this time of year. So you may have missed LPGA veteran Jan Stephenson’s enlightened comments on the effects of “Asians” on the LPGA Tour:

“Their lack of emotion, their refusal to speak English when they can speak English. They rarely speak,” said the Australian golfer in the November issue of Golf magazine.
“This is probably going to get me in trouble, but the Asians are killing our tour,” said Stephenson.
“We have two-day pro-ams where people are paying a lot of money to play with us, and they (Asians) say hello and goodbye,” Stephenson said.
. . .
“Our tour is predominantly international and the majority are Asian. They’ve taken it over.”

Every time you hear an entire ethnic group of people referred to as if it’s an individual, look out–a racist statement is probably ahead. The odds of this approach 100% when used in conjunction with the phrase “taking X over.” Here the key word being “they,” as if all Asians are working with singular purpose–to kill the tour.
It’s unclear from the story where Ms. Stephenson, who has made controversial remarks before, intended to go with this. Does she simply want to ban Asians from the LPGA? Or set a racial quota on the top money winners? That’s not going to sell.
The alternative is for Ms. Stephenson to go out and recruit even better non-Asian players who will stem the tide of the so-called Asian Invasion. But what are the odds of that? The Asians are “taking over” because they’re better players. And Ms. Stephenson needs to change her worldview accordingly.