TNT commentator and NBA Hall of Fame member Charles Barkley has never been known to mince words and has even caused controversy with statements in the past, both on and off the court. During a recent NCAA Final Four basketball tournament broadcast the “round mound of rebound” commented on how politicians divide Americans along racial lines when he stated that they “make us not like each other so they can keep their grasp of money and power.”
According to USA Today, on a broadcast on CBS during the NCAA Final Four basketball tournament, Barkley, who played for the Phoenix Suns and Philadelphia 76ers, blasted politicians on both sides of the aisle. There was a pregame showing about Sen. Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 appearance in
Indianapolis, where this year’s tournament was held, in which Kennedy told the crowd that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had just been assassinated. Barkley delivered his comments after viewing the news piece.“Yeah, but the one thing I took out of that piece, was, man, I think most white people and Black people are great people. I really believe that in my
heart. But I think our system is set up where our politicians, whether they’re Republicans or Democrats, are designed to make us not like each other so they can keep their grasp of money and power. They divide and conquer.“I truly believe in my heart most white people and Black people are awesome people, but we’re so stupid following our politicians, whether they’re Republicans or Democrats, and their only job is, ‘Hey, let’s make these people not like each other. We don’t live in their neighborhoods, we all got money, let’s make the whites and Blacks, not like each other, let’s make rich people and poor people not like each other, let’s scramble the middle class. I truly believe that in my heart.”