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Rob Parker said some very stupid things and he is paying the price for it. ESPN has suspended the man from First Take for 30 days after his comments about Robert Griffin III. Parker basically questioned the blackness of RG3, which led to a lot of controversy. A video of the comments appears below.
I am actually surprised that Parker did not get fired for these comments. They were so out there that the only thing that could happen was widespread anger. He tried to defend his comments initially, but the weight of public pressure was too much. He apologized on Wednesday but it was not enough to avoid a suspension.
ESPN needs to be more careful with stuff like this. When you start embracing debate over everything else, you end up with things like this. Parker was not trying to make an actual point. He just wanted to fire everyone up so people would watch the show and talk about his comments. That is not a very good road to go down.
Basically, the audience for First Take ends up hate watching it. By that, I mean people watch it because it will give them something to complain about. I know that I have done it before and I was not real happy with myself afterwards. They are not trying to forward debate in sports. They are simply trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator. They want people upset after watching.
Hopefully Parker and the company learned something from this. I really doubt it, but you never know.
