ESPN has admitted that commentator Rob Parker crossed the line when he questioned whether Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III is not really black because he has a white fiancee. But Parker doesn’t seem to think he did anything wrong.
After making those comments on Thursday morning, Parker was inundated with criticism on Twitter, and in his responses on Thursday afternoon, he generally acted as though he was the one who was owed an apology for anyone daring to question what he’d said. Parker called his critics, among other things, “uneducated” and “silly.”
But Parker suddenly stopped tweeting on Thursday, presumably because his bosses at ESPN told him to knock it off. After all, if the critics who were going after Parker on Twitter are uneducated and silly, doesn’t that mean the bosses at ESPN who said Parker’s comments were inappropriate are also uneducated and silly?
Before he went silent on Twitter, Parker also told critics to tune in to Friday’s First Take for more discussion of the matter. That’s right out of the First Take playbook: The show thrives on provoking controversy. But Friday’s First Take didn’t open with Parker or with any discussion of Griffin. Instead, the show simply ignored Parker’s comments and launched into an argument between panelists Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith about Sunday’s Steelers-Cowboys game.