I'm not gonna say what can or cannot be said in the black community, but I thought he was out of line. Who is he to question the authenticity of RGIII as a blackman, why does he have to "Tow a line" the way Parker thinks he should. RGIII is his own man just as you are and I am, why does he have to conform to "Parkers view of a Black man"

 

You're raising a completely different issue. We agree.

 

However, why does asking those questions warrant suspension?

To quasi quote Jake Briggance, "What if he was white?"

 

He would have been fired for interjecting race into the comments on RGIII.

To quasi quote Jake Briggance, "What if he was white?"

 

If Parker was white he wouldn't have any perspective on the situation. He isn't. He does.

This is from PFT and I thought it was an interesting take:

 

ESPN did not specify what the “appropriate disciplinary measures” were for people other than Parker, or who “the personnel responsible” were other than Parker. But Parker’s suspension is, frankly, ridiculous when compared to other discipline that ESPN has handed out to other employees.

 

Most notably, a 30-day suspension is the same punishment ESPN gave SportsCenter anchor Max Bretos for asking an NBA analyst this question about Jeremy Lin: “If there’s a chink in the armor, where can Lin improve his game?”

 

That may have been an unfortunate choice of words, but no one seriously believed that Bretos was attempting to use a racial slur in that question. People who know Bretos, including his Asian-American SportsCenter co-anchor Michael Kim, insisted that Bretos (whose wife is Asian) is a good man who has far too much respect for his audience and the athletes he covers to dream of using a racial slur on the air.

 

Parker, on the other hand, is widely known as a provocateur who would rather engage in personal attacks than honest debate. Before ESPN hired Parker, he had twice been disciplined by his previous employer, the Detroit News: Once for asking former Lions coach Rod Marinelli an insensitive question about his daughter’s marriage to the Lions’ then-defensive coordinator, and once for erroneously reporting that then-Michigan State quarterback Kirk Cousins (now Griffin’s backup on the Redskins) had assaulted someone on campus.

 

Think about what ESPN is doing by giving Parker and Bretos equivalent punishments. ESPN is saying that opposing interracial marriage is no worse than making an unfortunate slip of the tongue. ESPN is saying that Parker, who worked his way up to a job at ESPN by doing everything the wrong way in journalism, deserves no more punishment for a blatantly racist statement than Bretos, who worked his way up to a job at ESPN by being a consummate professional, deserves for an innocent mistake. (It’s also worth noting that when Bretos was alerted to the fact that some people were offended by his word choice, he profusely apologized. When people told Parker on Twitter that they were offended by his racist comments about Griffin, Parker told those people they were “uneducated” and “silly.”)

 

None of that matters to ESPN, however, because First Take gets pretty good ratings on weekday mornings, and the show garners attention by putting panelists on the air to make outrageous statements. ESPN covets those ratings enough that it’s willing to do anything for them. Even put a panelist on the air who will attack a black man for falling in love with a white woman.

So ESPN suspended him for the exact same reason they hired him?

So ESPN suspended him for the exact same reason they hired him?

 

Pretty much and on top of that they gave him the same suspension as what looked like nothing more than a bad choice of words. Honestly, I had to read the other comment two or three times before I figured it out. Night and day if you ask me.

 

Either way, I don't think Parker should have been suspended but I admit I thought the comments about his white fiance were way out of line.

Pretty much and on top of that they gave him the same suspension as what looked like nothing more than a bad choice of words. Honestly, I had to read the other comment two or three times before I figured it out. Night and day if you ask me.

 

Either way, I don't think Parker should have been suspended but I admit I thought the comments about his white fiance were way out of line.

 

Neither should have been suspended IMO.

 

What opinions are allowed now? How to attack the cover 2? Yawn.

ESPN has decided against renewing Rob Parker's contract.