Last week, a clip emerged of Cam Newton commenting on his viewpoints on the roles of women. The remarks prompted widespread scrutiny, and for good reason.
He defined a woman as “handling your own but knowing how to cater to a man’s needs.” He also said that, when a woman declares herself to be a “boss bitch,” the response is, “But you can’t cook. You don’t know when to be quiet. You don’t know how to allow a man to lead.”
Today, Newton has posted an eight-minute video regarding the remarks. The full statement can be watched here. In fairness to Cam, we encourage you to watch all of it, and to come to your own conclusions.
I’ve got three observations to make. First, Newton said his words were taken out of context. That phrase is commonly used as a vehicle for objecting to the isolation of one comment from a much broader collection of quotes. Unless the isolation of the comment fundamentally alters its meaning, it hasn’t been taken “out of context.”
For example, if I were to say, “I know plenty of coaches, and when I ask them about Cam Newton as a player some will say ‘I like Cam Newton’ and some will say ‘I don’t like Cam Newton,’” claiming that I said “I don’t like Cam Newton” would amount to taking those words out of context.
Second, Newton said that the controversial remarks were just a small piece of a much broader conversation.
“When you’re doing a podcast,” Newton said, “there’s multiple topics that’s being thrown at you at a time. Like, how do you feel about this? How do you feel about that? Cam, how do you feel about your NFL career? Cam, how do you feel about being a father? You know, you have seven kids. You have this and you have that. And it’s being looked at like it’s overwhelming to one hand but also it’s like if you want to scrutinize and look at every single thing that I said, you can’t just pick two lines. Look at the totality.”
However, unless those two lines when pulled from the totality amount to an inaccurate reflection of his opinions, they represent an accurate view of his thoughts. There’s a chance that, at some point during a lengthy interview, a moment or two of significance will spring out from the pack. That’s what happened last week.
Third, Newton wants his good deeds to be highlighted in the same way that his controversial remarks were. But that’s not how it works for public figures. No one writes articles about celebrities who do what they’re expected or required to do. The interest flows from words or actions that cut against what was anticipated.
Nothing Newton said today changes what he said last week. He’s not being “canceled” for his prior comments. He’s being scrutinized for them. He has a right to respond to the scrutiny. People may react to the response. And so on, until the topic runs out of steam.
