So what have you been silent on lately? Some have singled out Tiger Woods for not being loud enough on the matter of whether rich women should be afforded the opportunity to join rich men as members of the country club that sponsors the Masters golf tournament. We should all be so lucky to have this as the pressing issue in our lives!

But nongolfer that I am, I nevertheless find myself thinking: There’s something wrong with this picture.

It took almost forever for a black man to be able to play at Augusta, even longer to become a member, as corporate executives such as American Express’ Ken Chenault are. Tiger, who’s only an honorary member, has nevertheless become the whipping boy for those who would have him boycott the tournament to show his solidarity with women who want to become members of the club.

He has said that women should become members, but he has not indicated a willingness to boycott the Masters next spring.

Nor have other recent champions, including Mark O’Meara and Fred Couples. That doesn’t make them bad people. They may be misguided or narrowly focused on trophies and winners’ purses. But they are not the guys who matter when it comes to changing the rules at Augusta.

The real members ” the elite, overwhelmingly middle-age and older whites ” are being given a free pass here, and that’s not fair.

Why aren’t some of Augusta National’s more fabled members ” Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer, for instance ” being pressured to relinquish their $50,000-a-year memberships? Tiger shouldn’t have to tote their barge and lift their bale. Corporate bigwigs such as Jack Welch and Warren Buffett should be pressured to boycott this tournament, where deals are made as casually as little balls drop into those holes on the greens.

There’s no escaping the hypocrisy of it all. All these white men get a pass, while the 26-year-old self-described multiracial Cablinasian (Caucasian, black, Asian, Native American, etc.) is being asked to pay for their sins. It’s like the black bishop, Wilton Gregory, taking the heat for the Catholic Church in the United States as it grapples with the issue of the sexual abuse of children in its care.

If Tiger were on the links when blacks were being lynched and denied jobs or the right to vote, I’d be there making a ruckus. But, come on. I can’t get worked up on the possibility of rich women playing golf with rich men. Equality ” of access, of money, of prestige ” means just that. But it also means that the 200-plus dues-paying members of Augusta National ought to be pressured before the honorary member, the black guy, is.

I don’t expect any more from Tiger than I do from anybody else. If a bunch of women want to pay $50,000 a year in dues to be members of this club, then so be it. But in and of itself, membership in the Augusta National doesn’t mean a darn thing to most of us, for whom the dues alone amount to more than a year’s salary.

The golfing world, like the rest of us, likes to hide behind others. Let it take the heat. It’s well past time for that world to speak up.

But it should leave Tiger alone until it does so.