The Smithian

Baseball’s Atlanta Braves and Cleveland Indians, football's Kansas City Chiefs and hockey franchises like the Chicago Blackhawks have likewise come in for criticism. But the Redskins have far and away drawn the most ire, and some question whether clinging to the name, rather than engaging the opposition in meaningful dialogue, will be possible much longer.

It's this bio—a military brat with a white wife...an...ambitious 23-year-old black man who frequently mentions law school and post-football political aspirations but refuses to name his political orientation—that has fascinated so many people and confused not a few others. None more so, perhaps, than Rob Parker, a former commentator on ESPN's First Take. One day last December, after RG3 had given an interview in which he said, for about the millionth time, that he didn't want to be "defined" by his race, Parker shocked...when he said, "My question, which is just a straight honest question: Is he a brother, or is he a cornball brother?... He's black, he kind of does his thing, but he's not really down with the cause. He's not one of us." The comments leaped off the show and into the national conversation, sparking an ugly debate about RG3's "blackness." Parker was suspended and eventually let go.

Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier in 1947. But it wasn't until 1962 that the last NFL franchise integrated—the Washington Redskins...