By Larry Elder
Thursday, December 27, 2012
To a black ESPN sports analyst, this is the critical
question: Is Robert Griffin III, aka RG III, the black rookie sensation
Washington Redskins quarterback, "a brother, or is he a cornball
brother?" What has RG III done or said to raise a suspicion about his bona
fides as a black person? More importantly, what does this have to do with
appreciating -- or choosing not to appreciate -- Griffin as an athlete?
Turns out RG III fancies himself as a quarterback who
happens to be black -- as opposed to a black quarterback. When asked for the
millionth time about his status as a "black quarterback," Griffin
responded: "I don't play too much into the color game, because I don't
want to be the best African-American quarterback, I want to be the best
quarterback."
And, when asked at a press conference about Martin Luther
King Jr., RG III said: "For me, you don't ever want to be defined by the
color of your skin. You want to be defined by your work ethic, the person that
you are, your character, your personality. That's what I've tried to go out and
do. I am an African-American in America. That will never change. But I don't
have to be defined by that."
Holy color-blindness!
Such an attitude doesn't cut it with ESPN's Rob Parker,
who in addition to the "cornball brother" comment, said: "OK,
he's black, he kind of does the thing, but he's not really down with the cause.
He's not one of us. He's kind of black, but he's not really, like, the guy you
want to hang out with because he's off to something else. ... We all know he
has a white fiancee. Then there was all this talk about him being a
Republican."
Griffin is a winner so popular his jersey set a
single-year NFL record for sales. Elected high school class president, RG III
ranked seventh in his class, graduated a semester early and began college at
17. He graduated from Baylor University in three years with a degree in
political science, a 3.67 GPA and two appearances on the Dean's List. He took
graduate courses during his fourth year. He is the youngest of three children
-- his mother and father both sergeants in the Army. He's had the same
girlfriend since college.
Yep, RG III's practically a degenerate.
Parker's comments got him suspended for 30 days. He wrote
this apology: "I blew it and I'm sincerely sorry. I completely understand
how the issue of race in sports is a sensitive one and needs to be handled with
great care. This past Thursday I failed to do that. I believe the intended
topic is a worthy one. Robert's thoughts about being an African-American
quarterback and the impact of his phenomenal success have been discussed in
other media outlets, as well as among sports fans, particularly those in the African-American
community. The failure was in how I chose to discuss it on 'First Take,' and in
doing so, turned a productive conversation into a negative one."
But what Parker said about RG III is standard operating
procedure for the hosts and pundits on MSNBC and other outlets, who question
the "blackness" of "inauthentic blacks" like Herman Cain,
Allen West and Clarence Thomas.
Where's the apology from, let alone suspension for, the
following?
MSNBC contributor Karen Finney, who said about Republican
Herman Cain: "I think he makes that white Republican base of the party
feel OK, feel like they are not racist because they can like this guy. I think
he is giving that base a free pass, and I think they like him because they
think he is a black man who knows his place."
MSNBC's Martin Bashir, who said: "Mr. Cain was
supposed to attend the dedication of the Martin Luther King Memorial on Sunday
... but he failed to attend. Now there's been some surprise at his absence. But
being honest, isn't this consistent for a man who really doesn't want to be
overtly associated with African-Americans?"
MSNBC's Chris Matthews, who told black former Republican
National Committee Chairman Michael Steele that his party was "the Grand
Wizard crowd."
HBO's Bryant Gumbel, who on his "Real Sports"
program, said that he wouldn't watch the Winter Olympics: "Try not to
laugh when someone says these are the world's greatest athletes, despite a
paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention."
It took the bigoted treatment of RG III to make some
people wake up and smell the ideological totalitarianism. Maligning a black
person for "not being black enough" is a hideous form of bigotry, the
antithesis of what Martin Luther King Jr. stood for.
Will ESPN send Parker to "sensitivity
training," where many companies send their white bigots?
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