When I read that Charles Barkley was going to become the host of “The Race Card” on TNT, I knew it was a beautiful disaster in the waiting. I just knew the former “Round Mound of Rebound” was going to make some classically calamitous prime time programming. I knew there would be trouble because Charles Barkley is one of the present kings of respectability politics. You know the type: the typical black person of affluence that feels black people need to do what they are told and make white people comfortable in their denial of privilege, lack of equity, and overall racist trash. Once this announcement game though, I felt that backlash was going to be inevitable.
Right off the bat, Charles Barkley doesn’t plan on letting me down anytime soon.
At a recent town hall meeting in Baltimore, Barkley and his crew for TNT was there filming. The show wanted to get some dialogue on a hot button topic: police and the African American community. What many had hoped for was a healthy dialogue that would present solutions to the problems. What was gained was an understanding that Barkley wasn’t there to calm the storm. In fact, Barkley was there to agitate the crowd and blame them for presence of the entire water cycle in the first place.
In short, this entire meeting was a finger pointing session to blame Black peoplefor their own plight that they didn’t even create.
And therefore, at this moment, I feel that Charles Barkley and black people should not comingle on topics of racial importance.
Charles Barkley Is a Racial Buffoon
Let us be honest about it all: Charles Barkley doesn’t give a damn about the plight of black people. If he did, he would do his research instead of chastising an audience that has been put through hell at the hands of the police:
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. [1]
What type of ridiculousness is Barkley on? You don’t go to a city plagued by police corruption and challenge them on caring about the deaths of policemen. While those policemen lives do matter, a problem will arise when you blame a community for not caring about an outside situation that is both irrelevant to the conversation and condescending to their issues. Barkley only made effort to chastise the character of the community and not confront cop corruption.
And therein lies the other issue: he did not do his homework.
When a victim is historically victimized, one should never place blame on the victim. Yet, this is the running narrative of America that Barkley fed into. Instead of holding police responsible for their actions, he chose to wrangle black people about not being respectable enough. Additionally, he did not act as if he was aware of the present issues that has plagued the Baltimore community. Then again, he didn’t care because he wasn’t there for the right reasons. Charles Barkley was not there to help the victims in any form or fashion.
Charles Barkley Is There for The Ratings
As expected, Charles Barkley is the host of The Race Card to cause controversy and boost ratings. There is no contingency plan to improve race relations. There is no real chance of black people being heard. All this show is going to be is a call to action for black people to “get their act together and act like human beings”. But this is the same song and dance that has gotten us nowhere. I’m just glad that this will be a six-part series. That means Charles Barkley will be limited to just a few episodes to uphold a status quo that exacerbates all things negative about black people.
If people want Charles Barkley to not be called a coon, then he needs to stop doing coon shit.