I’m sure you were wondering what Charles Barkley had to say
about the Confederate statues. Happily for you, the great basketball player
offered his views in a radio interview. As always, he puts it all in
perspective:
Newsmax reports:
In an
interview with WRBC-TV’s Rick Karle is his home state of Alabama, Barkley said,
"I’m not going to waste my time worrying about these confederate
statues."
"You
know what I’m going to do? I’m going to keep doing great things. I’m going to
keep trying to make a difference, No. 1 in the black community because I’m
black. But I’m also going to try to do good things in the world.
"I’m
not going to waste my time screaming at a neo-Nazi who’s going to hate me no
matter what. And I’m not going to waste my time worrying about these statues.
I’ve always ignored them."
"I’m
54-years-old. I’ve never thought about those statues a day in my life. If you
ask most black people, they haven’t thought a day in their lives about those
stupid statues."
"What
we as black people need to do is: we have to worry about getting our
education," he said. "We need to stop killing each other. We need to
try to find ways to have more economic opportunity. Those things are important
and significant."
Sounds like Charles Barkley believes black lives matter, and that he understands what it takes for people to live a better life. It's refreshing to hear.
ReplyDeleteGood for Mr. Barkley.
ReplyDeleteHe is exactly right. They'll try to crucify him.
ReplyDeleteBarkley is smart. His words show it.
ReplyDeleteThe cool thing about being human is that you can have different opinions than other people about what's important and where to put your energy. sometimes looking inwards at what you can do is important as Barkley suggests, sometimes challenging others is important.
ReplyDeleteAnd as to the value of threatening civil war "hero" statues, it appears the primary value is to bring out all the overt racists and show the world things that otherwise stay hidden if you just play nice with others who judge by the color of you skin, rather the content of your character.
So it might be fair the symbolic value isn't making black people feel less oppressed, but trolling the white racists who still think the south won the civil war.