I suddenly find myself concerned about my blackness.

It had never occurred to me to worry about it before. Then came the incident last month on ESPN’s “First Take” program that initially got commentator Rob Parker suspended and then, last week, fired outright. It seems Parker, who is African-American, analyzed what he saw as the insufficient blackness of Robert Griffin III, rookie quarterback for the Washington, D.C., football team that is named for a racial slur.

Having returned their team to relevance for the first time since the Clinton era, RG3, as he is known, can do no wrong in the eyes of Slurs fans. But Parker, saying that the young man’s fiancee is (gasp!) white and that he himself is rumored to be – cover the children’s ears – a Republican, found him lacking in the area of authentic blackness.