As NFL stars seek the proverbial moral high ground over race, one quarterback found himself at the center of controversy over sexist comments he made to a female sports reporter.
During a press conference Wednesday, Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton told Charlotte Observer journalist Jourdan Rodrigue it was “funny” to hear her ask about route-running — a.k.a. doing her job.
“It’s funny to hear a female talk about routes,” he said with a smirk on his face. “It’s funny.”
Rodrigue didn’t say anything in the moment, but later took to Twitter to call Newton out for his sexist and demeaning comment:
I don’t think it’s “funny” to be a female and talk about routes. I think it’s my job.
All of this is ironic, given in late September, Newton called racial injustice “an epidemic” in America. He apparently fails to see the sexism, often lurking by under the radar, but in plain view this week.
On Sunday, in the fourth quarter of the Panthers’ game against the New England Patriots, Newton, standing in the end zone, bowed his head and raised his clenched left fist.
“It was to signify black power,” he said after the game, according to The New York Times. “But more important, I pray every night for God to give me a pinnacle to give people hope.”
But apparently, some players’ allegiance to fighting injustice is only skin deep.
One would think in a league hampered by domestic abuse problems, the issue of sexism would weigh heavily on players’ minds. After all, as the Chicago Tribune noted, the NFL seems to be a magnet for men accused of sexual assault:
In the first round [of the NFL draft], the Oakland Raiders drafted Gareon Conley, who has been accused of rape. In the second round, the Cincinnati Bengals selected Joe Mixon, who in a much-viewed video punches a woman so hard that she falls down unconscious. In the sixth round, the Cleveland Browns selected Caleb Brantley, who was accused of doing pretty much what Mixon did. And they are not the only drafted players who face or have faced such charges
Alas, neither sexism — nor abuse — is the cause de jour, so it marches on silently, while the world obsesses over race, only to rear its ugly head in moments like this.
Read the rest at: NFL Idiots
