Cavs Sideline Reporter Says Thompson Kiss Was “Inside Joke & Not A Big Deal”

Over the weekend we wrote about Tristan Thompson kissing Cavaliers sideline reporter, Allie Clifton. It was unprofessional, even if it was ultimately harmless. The piece provoked the ire of countless readers who claimed we were overreacting, a rejoinder we actually predicted in the piece. Except, Clifton herself said in a tweet yesterday that it was an “inside joke and not a big deal.”

Here’s Clifton setting the record straight:

Meanwhile, the response to the article was overwhelmingly negative.

Breaking rank here with the editorial voice, I’d just like to thank those people who disagreed with the article for specific reasons (i.e. diction, syntax, tone) rather than ad hominem attacks on me as a person. As for that small minority who agreed with me, I truly appreciate it.

The vast majority, however, couldn’t get past their atavistic thinking and inherent need to criticize the author of the article rather than the merits of the piece. Most also failed to respond to the ethical question of whether it was OK for Thompson to kiss a reporter while she was trying to do her job.

Many readers wanted me fired, or my boss fired. My boss is the owner, so firing him would be a tad tricky. Plus, he encouraged me to write the piece because he’s a BAWSE.

I still feel the piece was an important point to make and I still don’t find Thompson’s actions professional. I’m glad Clifton wasn’t offended, but I’m not at all sorry so many readers were.

We live in a world still dominated by men, and while women in America enjoy many freedoms women are denied in other countries, I still live in a country that only gave women the right to vote less than a century ago. No woman has ever been elected President of the United States or Chief Justice of the Supreme Court — despite Aaron Sorkin‘s attempts to revise that last point. Women still make less money for doing the same jobs as men. Women still suffer the ignominy of domestic violence and rape, and often bear the brunt of the public’s nastiness if it’s ever reported. Women get a raw deal a lot of the time.

We’ve all got sisters and mothers, and I was trying to speak for those women when I wrote about Tristan Thompson and Allie Clifton. Clifton wasn’t offended in the slightest by Thompson’s actions, and — as many of you were so quick to point out to me on Twitter — they have a good relationship. I’m glad, too, because it would make her job that much more difficult if there was any animosity from a player.

But Clifton and Thompson don’t really figure into this debate anymore. To sexualize — even a little bit — a female reporter is wrong. To sexualize any woman simply because she’s a woman is wrong. Women are our co-workers, our bosses, our subordinates, our peers. Treating them as anything less than a man’s equal is reprehensible in this day and age, and that’s what it seemed was happening when Tristan Thompson pecked Allie Clifton on the back of the head.

Now, after sifting through the smelly flotsam the article provoked among some of our readers, I can see these types of conversations are needed now more than ever.

As for those readers who castigated me for being a crappy writer, an even crappier person and [insert homophobic, sexist, misogynistic comment here] — well, you’re the reason I’m glad I wrote the piece. Thank you. Your frothing display of faux-machismo was endlessly entertaining in the Facebook comments and the comments on the site. The tweets were also hysterical attempts to put me in my place (I particularly liked the “whiteknight…mangina” affront, which had a lot more panache than some of the others).

Clifton waited a while to let everyone know she wasn’t offended by Thompson’s behavior, but I’m glad she finally did. The 23-year-old Thompson is, by all accounts, a good, decent guy. That’s why he shouldn’t get lumped in with the people who showed their true selves when commenting on our prior piece about this topic.

If you wish to lambaste me further, it’s pretty easy to get in touch with me online, or just leave another comment. Every time I read another remark, another clichéd insult, another little bit of gloriously self-righteous anger at having to read something absolutely no one made you read, it makes me that much happier for starting this dialogue.

Now lets back to basketball before I start quoting Lillian Hellman and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Have at me.

Follow Spencer on Twitter at @SpencerTyrel.

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