Chris Paul: Insensitive But Not Sexist

“[T]his might not be for her.” –Chris Paul on Lauren Holtkamp’s technical fouls

If you re-watch the play Paul is referring to when Holtkamp gives him the tech, his story holds up. His comments weren’t tech-worthy. But he is wrong (but within his rights) to criticize the referring. He has a good point about the play, but his comments were wrong.

Now, were his comments sexist? Yes….And no. He probably doesn’t say this if it’s a guy. But he also doesn’t say it if Holtkamp is a veteran. It’s hard to watch the video and not think that his last sentence comes out the same way if she were a man, but blanketing the statement with “sexist” ignores the myriad shades of meaning through which we express complex and sometimes underdeveloped thoughts and feelings.

I don’t think Paul believes she’s a bad ref because she’s a woman. Nor do I think he believes women shouldn’t be able to compete for jobs traditionally off limits to them. The problem, of course, is that an insensitive mark could be the tip of an iceberg of hateful and destructive thoughts and feelings. But when evaluating whether or not that’s the case, we must contextualize what one says in a given moment, not just with what he or she says around that moment but what that person says throughout his or her life.

Paul doesn’t seem to have puddles of sexist comments leading up to that, so he deserves so he doesn’t deserve to be called anything more than a player who got upset and criticized a specific ref. He didn’t use profanity nor did he use derogatory language. This gives people who traffic in words and stories something to write about for the next couple of days; that’s all. Paul will get fined, but not because what he said was sexist. But because he criticized a ref–as it should be.