Charles Barkley On The Huge Expectations On Black Athletes To Resolve Racial Issues: “We Can’t Solve All The Issues, No. 1 Of The Black Community Or In Black America In General”

Charles Barkley has never been someone who shies away from speaking his mind. 

The outspoken NBA Hall of Famer recently sat down for an interview with 60 Minutes where he called out the double standards that exist for black athletes, who are expected to speak on topics like race, while their white counterparts aren’t.

“One thing that frustrates me,” Barkley said. “And all Black athletes just for the record — anytime something happens racially, they come to us. I’m pretty sure white reporters didn’t run up on Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers, ‘What do you think?’ It’s a really unfair double standard.”

“We can’t solve all the issues, no. 1 of the Black community or in Black America in general. Should we help? 100%. But every time something happened, they come to us like no. 1 we got all the answers. And we do not have all the answers. It’s really unfair. They never ask White athletes the same questions.

There really is a double standard, and you almost never have white athletes being asked to speak on such issues. It’s not surprising that black athletes are frustrated by the fact that they are always the ones who are asked difficult questions. A lot of them would be hesitant to say that out loud, but Barkley is not. He always speaks what’s on his mind and isn’t bothered by the backlash that might come his way.

Charles Barkley Sounded Off On Michael Jordan During This Interview

Barkley had a lot of things to get off his chest during this interview. He said he was very angry when his father left the family when Barkley was just a year old and also spoke about his fractured relationship with Michael Jordan. 

Barkley and Jordan were best friends for much of their careers and after retirement as well until Sir Charles criticized MJ for the way he was running the Charlotte franchise. Jordan took offense to that, but Barkley has always maintained that he has a job to do on television. Criticizing others but not MJ would be double standards on his part, and that’s not the kind of person he is. While Barkley wants to mend fences with Jordan, he refuses to be the first one to apologize, as he clearly doesn’t believe he did anything wrong.

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