On the heels of yesterday’s controversy involving Cam Newton and female reporter Jourdan Rodrigue, one of Cam’s advertising partners have decided to drop Newton from their roster. Dannon, the yogurt maker and seller released a statement this afternoon.
“We are shocked and disheartened at the behavior and comments of Cam Newton towards Jourdan Rodrigue, which we perceive as sexist and disparaging to all women. It’s simply not okay to belittle anyone based on gender.”
The yogurt maker reportedly will still honor its contract with Cam, but will pull all of it’s advertising featuring the Carolina Panthers star quarterback as it’s pitchman. The comments that got Cam in hot water with the press, general public, and his sponsor came after Rodrigue asked Newton about the physicality in the routes run by Carolina wide receiver Devon Funchess, in which Cam replied “it’s funny to hear a female talk about routes…..it’s funny. Rodrigue took to Twitter minutes later to show her displeasure with Newton’s comments in a Tweet “I don’t think it’s funny to be a female and talk about routes. I think it’s my job.”
Cam Newton was in the wrong for his comments….clearly, but in today’s world, victim can sometimes become villain in the fraction of a second, as I’m sure Rodriguez learned today. A few Twitter users decided to dig up a few of Rodrigue’s old Tweets and found some disparaging and racist remarks that the reporter had once made. “The earth moves at 450+ mph thats 10 times triller than Nascar Dale Earnharts a bitch nigga” Rodrigue wrote in a Tweet dated 5/11/2013. In two tweets dated 8/10/2013, Rodriguez seemed to brag about how racist her father was and how proud she was of him because of that. “My dad is being super racist as we pass through Navajo land”….That Tweet was followed by confirmation of her being proud as she replied to a friend in the next Tweet. “He’s the best. Racist jokes the whole drive home.”
After Rodrigue was outed for her racist tweets, she took to Twitter to issue an apology this afternoon. “I apologize for the offensive Tweets from my Twitter account 4/5 years ago. There is no excuse for these Tweets and the sentiment behind them. I am deeply sorry and apologize.”
After claiming that Cam Newton never apologized or showed remorse after his comments to her, Rodrigue turned around and did pretty much the same thing. Sure, the words “I apologize” were in Rodriguez’s statement, but that was pretty much nullified when Rodrigue added that the Tweets were from 4/5 years ago. Pretty much stating that she should get a pass because the Tweets were old? I’m sorry Ms. Rodrigue, but there is no statute of limitation on racism. There is a lesson to be learned in all of this though. Two people can actually do wrong or have done a bad thing. Just because one is wrong does not always make the other person right.
