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Rob Parker added a new, unexpected canard to the Robert Griffin III conversation on Thursday morning. In yet another mindless round of conversation on ESPN's "First Take," Parker took up the issue of RGIII, whom the rookie quarterback voted for, and his fiance, who is white.
"Is he a brother, or is he a cornball brother," Parker asked. "I keep hearing these things. We all know he has a white fiancée. There was all this talk about he's a Republican."
Parker's questioning of whether or not RGIII was "one of us" even made Stephen A. Smith a little squeamish. "I'm uncomfortable with where we just went," Smith said.
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While overt racism may be a new foray for Parker, his comments Thursday were not the ESPN contributor's first dalliance with controversy.
In 2008, Parker falsely accused Michigan State quarterback Kirk Cousins, now RGIII's backup in Washington, of being involved in a fight that injured another student. Parker was suspended for two weeks by the Detroit News over the Cousins report. He also got into some trouble for a question he asked former Lions coach Rod Marinelli about his daughter; he resigned as a columnist with the paper over those remarks. He once called Hank Aaron a coward, too.
Now, let's see what Bristol has to say about Parker's remarks.
Watch:
Read his comments here:
Parker: "My question, which is just a straight, honest question: is he a brother or is he a cornball brother?"
Cari Champion: "What does that mean?"
Parker: "He's not really ... OK, he's black, he kinda does the thing, but he's not really down with the cause, he's not one of us. He's kinda black, but he's not really, like, the guy you really wanna hang out with because he's off to something else."
Champion: "Why is that your question?"
Parker: "Because that's just how I want to find out about him. I don't know because I keep hearing these things. We all know he has a white fiancée then there was all this talk about he was a Republican. There's no information at all. I'm just trying to dig deeper into why he has an issue because we did find out with Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods was like, "I got black skin but don't call me black.'"