Charles Barkley like Sage Steele and others high-profile black media personalities are quick to blame black people for problems that black people had nothing to do with.
They are often blinded and ignorant to what is really going on in the community which causes them to speak from lofty perches and high horses.
TNT gave Barkley a series called “The Race Card” and what people were afraid about is actually happening. Barkley isn’t really digging into the racial divide that is happening into America, he is just throwing salt on the wounds of the people who have been discriminated against. He is placing the blame and on them and deflecting from the real issues.
He went to a Baltimore church under the guise of trying to bridge the gap between the police and the community, but all he did was side with the police and make everything worse. Here are some excerpts from The Undefeated.
“I was hoping I would hear, see, feel something different. I did not,” said Gray-Hopkins, whose 19-year-old son, Gary Hopkins Jr., died in 1999 when a Prince George’s County police officer shot him in the chest after a dance at a local firehouse.
Her hopes were dashed, as the one-hour session quickly disintegrated into anger and disbelief from the audience aimed squarely at Barkley.
“I don’t think he really came here to listen to the people,” said Gray-Hopkins, a retired banking executive who wore a button with her son’s likeness and brought posters with his picture. “He [Barkley] is in his own world. What I came here to do tonight was to validate what I thought about him. And all he did was validate me.”
Barkley criticized the audience, many of whom are community activists, saying he didn’t believe that any of them had expressed sympathy for the families of four police officers who were shot Sunday in separate incidents around the United States.
In one case, a San Antonio detective was killed while writing a ticket following a traffic stop.
“Did anybody say, ‘Man, I feel bad for their family’? ” asked Barkley. “There was no love [for police] in this room.”
When Diane Butler, the mother of Tyrone West, a local man who died after a 2013 struggle with police following a traffic stop (the autopsy revealed he was died because he was suffocated & choked to death by cops), told Barkley, “I don’t know you, I don’t like you,” chiding him for empathizing with police for having to make split-second decisions. Barkley did not back down.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” said Barkley, then adding, “As far as you not liking me, it really doesn’t bother me. I’m used to it. I’m like the homecoming queen. All the ugly girls hate you. That’s part of my life. I never take anything personally.”
“What does your condolence mean to her?” said one audience member, gesturing toward Butler. “How simple and arrogant are you? There are so many black men that care about our community that for us to dwell on one man that just won’t get it is a waste of everybody’s time.”
To belittle a woman who lost her son by essentially calling her an ugly girl who is upset because he’s rich and famous is such an insensitive comment.
If Barkley was truly there for dialogue he would have asked the woman why she didn’t like him and try to understand why the things he was saying were so hurtful to that audience.
He doesn’t know these community activists, he doesn’t know what they said or did when the San Antonio cop was killed. Barkley conveniently mentioned the one cop who was killed by a black man and not the 9 cops who were shot by various white men the previous week. People don’t like bad cops and no one wants anyone to killed. It is sad anyone would get killed in the line of duty, so why wouldn’t Barkley stand up for the black men and women who were killed by the cops in situations where they didn’t have to die as strongly as he does for the cops?
TNT picked the wrong guy for this show, it should have been called the “White Card”, because that is the only card Barkley seemed interested in playing.