Who is racist?

RUSH:  You don't know what that's about?  Oh, you haven't heard about the latest racist incident on ESPN?  Yeah, this black reporter for ESPN was on some typically pointless, designed for controversy only ESPN show.  His name is Rob Parker, used to be in Detroit.  He said that RGIII is not down for the struggle, is not an authentic black.  He has a white fiancee, might be a Republican.  Can't be an authentic black, not down for the cause, and he's a cornball brother.  He's not really a black guy.  He's not one of us.  And, of course, this is being debated as though there is some possibility that Parker... A lot of people are outraged by it, naturally, but depending who you are and what your skin color, you can say anything and have it treated as an intellectual addition to the public domain and have it discussed.

Now, this is not like going after Clarence Thomas, who's an acknowledged conservative, or not like going after Walter Williams or Shelby Steele.  RGIII is the most popular black guy in DC.  He is single-handedly saving the Washington Redskins.  There's still playoff potential there with the Redskins.  Going after this guy as a conservative, as a Republican, is not an automatic score for you.  But, once again, who is it in our culture that are the real racists?  And who is it that's determining who's authentically this and who's not authentically that?
This Rob Parker guy (paraphrasing), "Yeah, well, he's black. He kind of does his 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 the guy you'd really want to hang out with 'cause he's off to do something else."  Essentially he's too white.  He's not authentically-black, Snerdley.  This is the kind of stuff, by the way, that they were talking about, not as pointedly, about Obama during the 2007, 2008 campaign.  That's what the LA Times column, the "Magic Negro," was all about.  I can't believe you hadn't heard about that.  ESPN's response is they are looking at it.  ESPN is looking at it, determining, you know, what they might want to do.  Let's grab the sound bite.  Here's Rob Parker.  It's on the program called First Take, and this is the show that he appears on with Skip Bayless.  Stephen A. Smith is on this show.  And the cohost, Cari Champion, says, "What does this say about RGIII?"

PARKER:  My question, which is just a straight honest question, is he a brother or is he a cornball brother?  He's black, he does his 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 really want to hang out with 'cause he's off to something.  We all know he has a white fiancee and there's all this talk about he's Republican, which, 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 don't want to -- I got black skin but don't call me black.  So people got a little... wondered about Tiger Woods early on about him.
RUSH: This guy's a separatist. This guy doesn't want any kind of integration. This guy's a full-fledged separatist. They're investigating to see if he's Republican. And if it can be proven that he's Republican, then ESPN probably say no foul. If they can remove that RGIII is a Republican then there will be no problem and Parker get even more airtime. They're investigating whether he's a Republican. That's gonna be the determine factor.
Now, RGIII has said (paraphrased), "Look, I don't want to be defined by my race." That's a big problem. He has said publicly he doesn't want to be defined by race. He wants to be defined by the kind of person he is. Like Martin Luther King said. The content of his character, the degree to which he performs well, his character in public. That's how he wants to be known and that's how he wants to live his life. He doesn't want to live his life as a skin color.