Fox Sports 1’s Rob Parker crossed the line in an embarrassingly disrespectful way.
It’s understood that sports analysts are going to be critical of professional athletes, but it should never become personal.
But that’s exactly what happened when Parker criticized Dallas Cowboys Wide Receiver Dez Bryant for his stance on protesting the National Anthem.
Parker put Bryant among “the worst people in the world” for his views.
From Breitbart:
Fox Sports 1’s Rob Parker ripped “selfish” Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant for refusing to protest during the national anthem.
Parker said Bryant, who cited his “family to feed” for not protesting, does not understand what Colin Kaepernick was protesting, adding that the “worst people in the world” are people who see something is wrong and do nothing to fix it.
“[Bryant] comes off as your typical selfish athlete,” Parker said Friday on “Undisputed.” “He doesn’t understand, it’s not about him. It’s bigger than him.”
He continued, “How do you make change? You’ve got to be willing to fight for it. It’s not going to happen because you’re so selfish you’re going to stand up there and derail the whole movement by talking about your damn job and feeding your damn family. It ain’t right. And it does a disservice to what Colin Kaepernick was willing to do, where he had nothing vested personally in it, other than doing what’s right. The worst people in the world are the people who refuse to say something when things are wrong. Those are the worst people in the world. And that’s what I look at when I look at Dez Bryant. He bothers me so much from the standpoint of, dude, wake up. This is real. Ain’t about catching no footballs.”
It’s disgusting for Parker to label Bryant one of “the worst people in the world” because he dares to have a different perspective.
“Death by cop” only accounts for 4% of the homicides among black Americans, and that includes violent shootouts as well as the egregious shootings that have been widely covered.
That isn’t to trivialize death, but the media hysteria is far out of proportion with what’s actually happening in the streets.
Perhaps Bryant understands this and believes a protest would be disingenuous. Even if he’s oblivious to the facts, he shouldn’t be bullied into any cause.
Parker’s contemptuous dismissal of Bryant’s concern for his family is also disturbing.
If Bryant found himself unemployed like Kaepernick, Parker and critics of his stripe obviously wouldn’t step in to provide for Bryant and his family.
This isn’t the first time Parker has made ignorant comments about a football player—but hopefully it will be the last.
In 2012, he said the following about Quarterback Robert Griffin III:
“My question, which is just a straight honest question: is he a brother, or is he a cornball brother?…Well, [that] 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, because he’s off to do something else…We all know he has a white fiancée. Then there was all this talk about he’s a Republican, which there’s no information at all.”
If this is what passes for “sports commentary” in the 21st century, the profession is doomed.