WP: Charles Barkley rants about Russell Wilson being called ‘not black enough’

[Thinking Skins]

Dear Black People: Please Stop Spreading The Lie That “Bad” Blacks Are Holding “Good” Blacks Back

1. Because it’s not true. Charles Barkley – like Mike Freeman before him — was not completely wrong when saying that there are some Black people who deride other Blacks for speaking properly or achieving academically. But just because something may technically be right doesn’t mean it’s true. Because the truth is that the majority of Black people are just like any other people: indifferent. Yes, we care about our friends and our families and maybe Beyonce a bit too much, but most of us — even the “bad” Blacks — are too wrapped up in our own lives to really give more than half of a **** about what other people are doing with their’s.

But, according to Barkley and the rest of the people who continue to repeat this falsehood, in every poor Black community exists an amorphous horde of round-the-clock haters whose only purpose is to kill every dream and use every college acceptance letter as rolling paper.

2. Because while they’re talking about “Black people” who they’re really talking about is poor Black people in predominately Black communities and basically blaming “poor Black culture” for each of the Black community’s ills.

3. Because saying “Black haters is what’s holding Black people back” is like blaming a monsoon on a sneeze. Out of all the structural, social, cultural, and historical obstacles that could reasonably be argued to be what’s actually keeping Black people back, a Black kid teasing another Black kid for getting an “A” in English is it?

4. Because having a conversation about “what’s holding Black people back” implies that Black people collectively are hopeless and pathetic and will be less hopeless and pathetic when they start acting like other, non-Black, people. (And yes, there’s a difference between saying this in a stand-up comedy skit or a conversation with other Black people and saying this to your “White friends.”)

5. Because if you actually go to a hood, you’ll find that if there is a young person with actual academic or athletic potential — basically, someone who seems to have a ticket out of the hood — there will usually be waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more people rooting for and even protecting them than actively wanting them to fail. Maybe their methods of protection and support might be unorthodox and even occasionally counterproductive, but the supporters, the ones genuinely happy to see someone from their block who’s “made it,” tend to outnumber the haters.

6. Because saying things like “this is a dirty secret in the Black community” gives off the impression that it is unique to poor Black people. Apparently no other community contains haters. Which means there should be more jobs in the hood, because someone has to staff these hater cultivation plants that apparently exist in every hood.

7. Because this is just another way that poor Black people are “othered” by other Blacks.

8. Because, while poor Black neighborhoods definitely have their myriad issues to wrestle, inventing new ones — or making a preexisting issue sound much worse than it actually is — is dangerously irresponsible. Because inventing or exaggerating certain issues takes attention and resources away from addressing actual root causes.

charles9. Because anyone from Leeds, Alabama or Gary, Indiana or Youngstown, Ohio or Compton, California who made it out obviously had some help from some of these “bad” Black people. Some poor Black family in your neighborhood who allowed you to stay at their place for a month because the lights were out at yours. Some kid in your class who took the rap when you both were caught stealing chips from the cafeteria, because even he sensed your future was brighter than his and you couldn’t afford to get in this type of trouble. Some assistant principle who wouldn’t allow you to play football your sophomore year because you were failing social studies. Some church that organized a bookbag drive so you and the other kids in the neighborhood would be prepared for the first day of school. Some drug dealer who’d tease you about being a nerd, but told the other drug dealers not to mess with you because you were going to college.

10. Because making blanket negative statements about (relatively) powerless and voiceless people is just as bad as what you’re accusing them of.

[Riggo-toni]

No, but there has been a lot Brady is homosexual noise, not among media but he gets a lot of criticism for being who he is.

Nobody who knocks up one supermodel and then dumps her for another supermodel is getting called gay, no matter how stupid he looks on the dance floor.

Finally, can we all please agree that other black people are not to blame - it's clearly Nabisco's fault for marketing cookies under a racial epithet that denigrates the success of African Americans. #changethecookie.org

[HailGalvatron]

Where was Sir Charles when RG3 was being called a cornball brother!!!

[burgundyrush]

If black people (among other races) don't celebrate incarceration, drug use, violence and other negative aspects then please explain the popularity of gangsta rap in modern America.

http://www.hiphopisread.com/2012/04/secret-meeting-that-changed-rap-music.html?m=1

[Kosher Ham]

So I need to live in a certain neighborhood to be black or I have to work for a black company ?

 

What in the hell ?

 

You have a problem with diversity ? That's what it sounds like.

 

You are making Charles' point for him.

[burgundyrush]

Barkley is 100% correct. Barkley just said what many of us already knew, he just have a much bigger platform.

A few years ago I was in the car listening to 93.7 WBLK out of Buffalo. The radio host said, "I want to give a Shout out to all the brotha's holding it down in jail/prison."

To this day, I have never forgotten that ignorant statement. You want to know the mindset of many black people, just look at that statement.

It's not what you think...he is basically saying keep your head up

[Thinking Skins]

I think Charles Barkley, a black man who came up through the south and has been in the national spotlight since he was 18 is qualified to speak about problems in the black community

Sorry zoony but why does THIS make him qualified? Maybe it makes him qualified to talk about HIS EXPERIENCES, but he hasn't done studies on racism in America or how it has changed through the years, he hasn't researched the usage of code words by the media being used to describe certain elements of society. His resume is in fact very shallow when it comes to race relations. Someone earlier criticized Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton, calling them ambulance chasers. Someone else referred to Malcolm and Dr. King. But the research on this topic, and the people who have contributed to it is much deeper than that.

From "Souls of Black Folk" to "Race Matters" to "Black Boy" to "Native Son" to "Invisible Man" to "A Lesson Before Dying", and those are just what's in my recent rolodex, but this is a deep topic and I think Brother Barkley is oversimplifying it by just blaming it on "brainwashed Blacks".

I'm not saying that reading or writing these books makes somebody better or worse, but what Barkley is doing, and what many people in this thread are doing are scapegoating the issue by blaming the scapegoat without understanding the complex issue at hand. Having gone through and read this stuff, what JoeWolf990 is saying is very true on a large level (minus the idiot remarks). This is something that needs more than a "gotcha headline" quote. There are many things going on at once and to sum it all up as a "those Blacks don't want to learn so they're wrong" argument is just wrong.

[ABQCOWBOY]

Its always amazing how Charles Barkley is now the goto man on race conversations despite the fact that he is not well-read on any race matter. He hasnt done any research or written peer reviewed journals on race and his views come from nothing but his dumbass mind.

This all came from a BS article from Mike Freeman who has a history of saying stuff about black QBs with no source.

Sadly there will be people even less read than Barkley, which is incredible when really think about it, that will see Barkley's comments and applaud them and agree with them.

Basically Charles Barkley is an idiot and Mike Freeman is also an idiot. Barkley needs to stick to basketball and being a degenerate gambler.

And its true in the black community. Just like its true for whites, hispanics, and even asians. The nerds always get made fun of until they start running the world. Successful people are always gotten at them in every racial group. Its just that idiots like Barkley like to think its only an African American issue.

 

 

Maybe that's why he resonates with people.  He is not of academia.   He simply looks at things in a more common way and says what he things.   There is nothing wrong with that, BTW.

[Kosher Ham]

It's not what you think...he is basically saying keep your head up

 

It is likely exactly what he thinks. Bad times is one thing, criminals/ "brothas" holding it down.

 

Ehh... That is along the celebratory statement made. Shout out to my dogs. Shout out to Kiki and Jameson.

[Thinking Skins]

If black people (among other races) don't celebrate incarceration, drug use, violence and other negative aspects then please explain the popularity of gangsta rap in modern America.

'

I kinda wonder how much rap you've listened to, because what's known as "gangsta rap" is actually some of the most lyrical and poetic voices of the very people that people in this thread are talking about.

Somewhere along the line, some people decided that "Good Times" was too negative of a storyline and that we needed to see a more successful Black family, and in came "The Jeffersons". People love to talk about Martin, Malcolm, Medgar, and all these heroes, all their family members who went to college and have done well. Then we have that famous Chris Rock line, "I love Black people, but I hate ******".

That's how a large portion of the Black community has been, just forgotten, hated by the rest of society for what they don't have and what they need, and told to "get a job" when there are no jobs being offered in their communities; told to eat healthy when the nearest grocery store is 5 miles away. But out of this culture, this group of rejects and ex prisoners, comes this thing called HIP HOP.

And this thing called hip hop went from being just something that people played out of their windows on the streets of NY, to being something that people played at parties, to being the number one selling music genre.

And this "gangsta rap" (at least the legit stuff) is for the most part people's life stories. Is it gangsta rap if just because a person grew up dodging bullets like Neo? If you listen to an album like Illmatic (20 years), that's on par with Native Son or Black Boy for a whole generation of Black guys who lived through that. Same goes for Ready to Die or Me Against the World (especially the songs Suicidal Thoughts and Me Against the World respectively).

[ABQCOWBOY]

Since when do people in America need to be QUALIFIED to give opinions? People are giving opinions on this board right now. Are any of us qualified to do so, based on whatever litmus you have on the subject? Nobody is being forced to listen to what somebody else has to say. If you don't believe a person is qualified to speak on any given subject matter, then don't listen. Don't read. However, don't think that because somebody doesn't feel a given person is not qualified to speak, that somehow gives anybody the right to prevent another from speaking. That's not the way it works here.

[Chew]

Where was Sir Charles when RG3 was being called a cornball brother!!!

He was busy gambling and getting tugjobs from a hooker in his car. You know, like what most real brothas do lol.

[Thinking Skins]

Since when do people in America need to be QUALIFIED to give opinions? People are giving opinions on this board right now. Are any of us qualified to do so, based on whatever litmus you have on the subject? Nobody is being forced to listen to what somebody else has to say. If you don't believe a person is qualified to speak on any given subject matter, then don't listen. Don't read. However, don't think that because somebody doesn't feel a given person is not qualified to speak, that somehow gives anybody the right to prevent another from speaking. That's not the way it works here.

Since forever.

That's why they have the number of posts that a person has under your name here. It gives me an idea of how credible you are. Is this just a troll opinion or somebody who's respected on this board?

The media doesn't just go out and get Joe Schmoes on the street, they try to get guys with a reputation. You don't normally see athletes come in on CNN to be interviewed for political discussions. When's the last time you heard Matt Hasselbeck asked if he voted for Obama or Romney? Nah, they generally get people like Rachel Maddow who has a PhD and can speak authoritatively on the subject.

[TimmySmith]

Since forever.

That's why they have the number of posts that a person has under your name here. It gives me an idea of how credible you are. Is this just a troll opinion or somebody who's respected on this board?

The media doesn't just go out and get Joe Schmoes on the street, they try to get guys with a reputation. You don't normally see athletes come in on CNN to be interviewed for political discussions. When's the last time you heard Matt Hasselbeck asked if he voted for Obama or Romney? Nah, they generally get people like Rachel Maddow who has a PhD and can speak authoritatively on the subject.

Barkley was asked about Russell Wilson.  I am fairly certain he knows more than Rachel Maddow on what it's like to be a successful black athlete.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

We don't know how to talk about race relations between black people and white people.

 

What makes us think that we would be able to have a national conversation about relations within the black community?

 

Most journalists are only going to give benign platitudes over fear of getting fired.

[ABQCOWBOY]

Since forever.

That's why they have the number of posts that a person has under your name here. It gives me an idea of how credible you are. Is this just a troll opinion or somebody who's respected on this board?

The media doesn't just go out and get Joe Schmoes on the street, they try to get guys with a reputation. You don't normally see athletes come in on CNN to be interviewed for political discussions. When's the last time you heard Matt Hasselbeck asked if he voted for Obama or Romney? Nah, they generally get people like Rachel Maddow who has a PhD and can speak authoritatively on the subject.

 

 

LOL....   I see.  I guess it depends on what you chose to believe.   I you don't like what it is I'm saying, you can label me a troll.  I, on the other hand, believe that people are absolutely entitled to their own opinions.   You are entitled to yours, I mine and everybody on this board can read those opinions and judge for themselves.   I'm 100% OK with that.

 

You know why?   Because the Constitutions guarantees me the right.   Being an athlete does not preclude you from that right and speaking about Wilson does not make anybody unqualified to give opinion on the subject. 

 

For the record, the Media absolutely does do this kind of thing all the time.  

[Thinking Skins]

Barkley was asked about Russell Wilson.  I am fairly certain he knows more than Rachel Maddow on what it's like to be a successful black athlete.

I didn't say Maddow knew anything about the subject you mention.

But the problem with Barkley isn't that he has an opinion, its that his opinion oversimplifies the issue and plays the blame game. His opinion says "they're the problem", when in actuality the problem is much more complex than can fit into a 1000 word article or 30 minute interview.

I don't have a problem with Barkley having an opinion, but I do have a problem with all the chorus singers who act as if its the correct opinion. I've spent a good portion of my adult life actually studying this problem and I do understand Barkley's comments, but its just more complex than that and I wish people would understand that part of it instead of just blaming poor people (low income Blacks) which someone in this thread actually said.

[ABQCOWBOY]

I didn't say Maddow knew anything about the subject you mention.

But the problem with Barkley isn't that he has an opinion, its that his opinion oversimplifies the issue and plays the blame game. His opinion says "they're the problem", when in actuality the problem is much more complex than can fit into a 1000 word article or 30 minute interview.

I don't have a problem with Barkley having an opinion, but I do have a problem with all the chorus singers who act as if its the correct opinion. I've spent a good portion of my adult life actually studying this problem and I do understand Barkley's comments, but its just more complex than that and I wish people would understand that part of it instead of just blaming poor people (low income Blacks) which someone in this thread actually said.

 

 

Why do you believe that people can't or don't understand the issue?  

[burgundyrush]

It is likely exactly what he thinks. Bad times is one thing, criminals/ "brothas" holding it down.

Ehh... That is along the celebratory statement made. Shout out to my dogs. Shout out to Kiki and Jameson.

trust me there is nothing celebratory about being in prison even as a rapper.

[JoeWolf990]

So I need to live in a certain neighborhood to be black or I have to work for a black company ?

 

What in the hell ?

 

You have a problem with diversity ? That's what it sounds like.

 

You are making Charles' point for him.

I have no idea how you came to this point from my post. Please re-read it.

[Going Commando]

So Carroll, Sherman, and even Wilson are trying to say that this story isn't true. 

 

I can't blame them, they are trying to keep things together, but I'm calling bs. It might not be the whole truth, but I think there is something.

I don't know, I find the story very hard to believe. Football players are loyal to even bad QBs. Wilson is a good QB. And he led them to a ring. His teammates are not going to turn on him over some silly ass nonsense like not being black enough. I'd be very surprised if that locker room doesn't support him 100%.

If I had to guess, I'd say one or a couple of his teammates might have made off hand comments about Wilson being kind of white and didn't mean anything by it. And then the writer took those comments and ran with this narrative that the locker room was divided and the key reason was Wilson acts too white and un-relatable.

Losing/failure brings out the worst in teams, fans, media etc. People start searching for deeper, single explanations for failure because they believe there have to be. That's why stuff like this gets made up.

[JoeWolf990]

...but its just more complex than that and I wish people would understand that part of it instead of just blaming poor people (low income Blacks) which someone in this thread actually said.

exactly

[Thinking Skins]

LOL....   I see.  I guess it depends on what you chose to believe.   I you don't like what it is I'm saying, you can label me a troll.  I, on the other hand, believe that people are absolutely entitled to their own opinions.   You are entitled you yours, I mine and everybody on this board can read those opinions and judge for themselves.   I'm 100% OK with that.

 

You know why?   Because the Constitutions guarantees me the right.   Being an athlete does not preclude you from that right and speaking about Wilson does not make anybody unqualified to give opinion on the subject. 

 

For the record, the Media absolutely does do this kind of thing all the time.

The media never does an in depth discussion on race. That's one of America's hidden secrets and the media was singing Kumbaya when Obama got elected with stories saying and asking if racism was over. Its the reason that you can have a show on PBS discussing a remake of the strong "Strange Fruit" which was originally done by Billie Holliday - a very well sang song about lynchings in America - and whitewash it by removing any reference to lynchings from the interview, when that's the entirety of what the song is about.

http://gawker.com/annie-lennox-whitewashes-explanation-of-strange-fruit-1650325025

its the reason that we can have so many Ferguson Missouri, and Florida and NY City and LA police killing of Black men but the media and general population give excuses for the police and say "its not racism" or "why don't you just stay calm" or "I don't see the problem, I've told the police they couldn't search my car and didn't get arrested".

Its the reason why a mob of people in Lousiana, on CNN, "looters" vs "people looking for food". Or in Ferguson "rioters" vs college parties where cars are turned over and the media calls it "pumpkinfest".

Its the reason that every year dozens of Halloween parties feature white kids in Black face, yet the media says its not racism, just kids having fun.

I can go on and on, but the media continually dismisses the issue of race until they cannot, and then they run a story on it until it can be a backstory again.

[Forehead]

Didn't Bill Cosby say something along these lines awhile back?  I know that most of his focus has been on parenting and lack of teaching moral behavior in underprivileged communities.  I checked, apparently he says this a lot.  Does his Doctorate in Education give him any grounds?

 

My opinion on this is unchanged.  This isn't a race issue, it's a class issue.  I grew up in a relatively affluent area, and while the prevailing minorities weren't Black or Latino (It was Asian), I can't remember any of the ones that were there being mocked when they attempted to succeed academically.  It was an academic culture, race didn't play a part.  I remember one kid being called an oreo once, but it was during baseball practice, was done by white kids, and as far as I knew, had nothing to do with academics.

 

I'm pretty sure there's jealousy in poor white neighborhoods of people who are "trying to escape" or think they're better than everyone else, the same as there are in poor black neighborhoods.  The difference is how much it is popularized, accurately or not.  How popular is gangster rap?  How popular are urban drug/gang movies, whether it's recent, or something older like New Jack City?  There's a ton of this stuff out for public consumption, it makes money, etc.

 

Where's the popularization of poor whites?  Fricken Honey Boo Boo?  It's isn't nearly as prevalent in mainstream media.  If it were, I think you might see the same opinions voiced about poor whites keeping each other down, whether it's accurate or not.

[Thinking Skins]

Why do you believe that people can't or don't understand the issue?

The first thing is that we're taught certain principle in America, like the American dream - you have a family and basically your dream is to give your kids enough to be able to have them live longer than you and be able to do better than you did. That's become tied in with another narrative - that education, particularly a college degree, provides a means to accomplish this. So the story becomes that everybody should go to college and education is the answer.

But the first thing is that if you look at public schools in major cities, be it DC, or Baltimore, or NY, or Chicago or LA, or whatever city you name, you'll see one thing - these schools aren't funded. What does that mean for Black students that attend these schools, cause oh yeah, most White kids who live in these cities attend private schools or schools in a different neighborhood that has very few Blacks. So we have underfunded school systems that teach Black students. These school systems have been shown to both expect less from Black students (aka think they're less intelligent), and punish them harder (aka think they're more violent) for the same violations.

 

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.