Former NBA great Charles Barkley is making headlines again with some recent negative comments he made about the Ferguson rioters and the media coverage of them.
When Barkley’s comments were brought up on Fox News Channel’s The Five, former Democratic campaign manager Bob Beckel criticized Barkley’s commentary, almost calling it self-serving: “He has not seen a poor neighborhood in 20 years, number one,” Beckel said. “He’s running as a Republican for the Senate. He’s putting his nose in this and he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
However, Beckel’s information was a bit outdated. Barkley only considered running for governor of Alabama back in 1995 as a Republican, then again in 2010 as a Democrat. He's obviously forgotten Barkley's softball interview with Obama for TNT earlier this year.)
Speaking to Philadelphia’s 97.5 Fanatic radio host Mike Missanelli, Barkley shared his thoughts:
“The true story came out from the grand jury testimony,” Barkley said, indicating that he believes Wilson’s version of the events and that the shooting was ultimately justified. “We have to be really careful with the cops man, because if it wasn’t for the cops we would be living in the Wild, Wild West in our neighborhoods,” he continued. “We can’t pick out certain incidentals that don’t go our way and act like the cops are all bad.”
“Do you know how bad some of these neighborhoods would be if it wasn’t for the cops?” Barkley asked.
Barkley didn’t stop there. He called the rioters “scumbags” and insisted there was no excuse for people to “be out there burning down people’s businesses, burning up police cars... “That serves no purpose whatsoever.”
He then went on to blast the media’s role for fanning the flames: “I can’t believe anything I hear on television anymore…And, that’s why I don’t like talking about race issues with the media anymore, because they love this stuff, and lead people to jump to conclusions. The media shouldn’t do that. They never do that when black people kill each other.”
This isn’t the first time the NBA Hall of Famer made headlines for going against the grain when it came to highly publicized trials where race seemed to be a factor. Regarding the George Zimmerman verdict, Barkley stated:
“Well I agree with the verdict,” Barkley said. “I feel sorry that young kid got killed, but they didn’t have enough evidence to charge him. Something clearly went wrong that night — clearly something went wrong — and I feel bad for anybody who loses a kid, but if you looked at the case and you don’t make it — there was some racial profiling, no question about it — but something happened that changed the dynamic of that night.”
Earlier: CNN enjoys bringing on Barkley to call conservatives "fake Christians"
