During Tuesday night's win against the San Antonio Spurs, Lakers guard Kobe Bryant was caught on camera calling referee Bennie Adams a "f--king f--got," which drew a swift rebuke from the NBA in the form of a $100,00 fine. In a previous post here on The Red Carpet, SB Nation L.A. editor Eric Stephen already highlighted Silver Screen and Roll's excellent response to the situation, but we wanted to take a look at a few other places to see what they're saying as well.
SB Nation's Andy Hutchins writes Bryant's use of the slur constitutes othering, which is an "insidiously useful" method of "reinforcing what a person, group, idea is by setting up an opposition that's different from it." What draws Hutchins' ire here is that Bryant's language is meant to "divide and demean."
For his part, Bryant apologized during an interview with ESPN Radio Los Angeles, and went slightly beyond the non-apology apology that usually sounds something like "I'm sorry if anyone was offended." From Bryant, who, we should note, will appeal the fine:
"But as an individual you have to be responsible for your own actions. The comment that I made, even though it was not meant as it is perceived to be, is nonetheless wrong. So it’s important to own that."
Bryant closed the portion of the interview relating to the incident by saying, "hopefully we’ll all kind of learn from this experience."
Indeed.