What Charles Barkley is saying is absolutely TRUE, but we have to be careful not stereotype our entire race.
Black people can be our own worst enemy at times. We can be crabs in barrel, we often times celebrate failure more than we do success. We have a warped sense of reality of what it means to “keep it real”. We make a lot of excuses for not being productive and succeeding in life. We have situations where players think an educated quarterback like Russell Wilson isn’t “black enough”. Everything isn’t a racial issue, sometimes it is a YOU issue.
But, unlike other races who have the same type of people, we are the only race where one ignorant person makes us all look bad, when in reality we aren’t all like that. If a white person robs a bank, the next white person someone sees they don’t automatically think will be a bank robber. They assume the robber was a just a bad apple. If a black person robs a bank, the perception gets spread across all black people.
Do we have issues within our own race? Absolutely and it is disheartening that I find myself shaking my head in agreement with everything that Barkley said. But don’t get it confused, we cause a lot of our own problems, but that doesn’t mean the problems that are thrusted upon us by society aren’t valid.
I have a college degree and I am doing alright in life, but that doesn’t stop me from being followed in stores, strange looks when I get out of my car because of what type of car it is or just general racism, prejudice and stereotypes I have to deal with on a daily basis. It doesn’t stop me from being nervous any time a cop is around. It doesn’t make me less sick to my stomach when someone says “you are so well spoken” like I’ve found a cure to a disease that black people have. That has nothing to do with black people, that has to do with centuries of ignorance against black people. I wish Barkley would have also spoke on that because it isn’t a one way street.
We can and need to do better as a race. We are walking out the door down 14-0, so no need to fumble before we even get in the car. We need to be more positive, we need to help each other out more, we need to stop perpetuating the stereotypes that people already have one us, we have to know the difference between imaginary excuses about failing in life and real ones. We need focus on more important things and not trying to impress people who don’t care anything about us. Hard to win a war when you are infighting with your own people.
I could go on for hours, but the most important part and it is a cliche, but don’t judge every book by its cover. If you are white, don’t listen to Charles Barkley and say to yourself “see black people only have themselves to blame”. We aren’t ALL like that, just like white people aren’t all like the criminals, thugs, abusers and white collar crooks I read about EVERY SINGLE DAY.
Issues like this are never just black or white. There will always be a gray area and an intelligent no matter what race they are will see that.