Former NBA star Charles Barkley is backing up the grand jury decision to not indict the white police officer who was involved in the shooting of 19-year-old teenager, Michael Brown last August. The outspoken basketball player-turned-commentator called the idea of white cops profiling black people “ridiculous,” in his recent interview with CNN.
Barkley called looters in the Ferguson riots “scumbags.” He also expressed his frustration when educated black people are dubbed as “acting white.” “The real black people, they’re not out there looting,” he added.
Instead of talking about race when something tragic happens, Barkley encouraged the public to favor a rational dialogue about race in America rather than just taking on what is reported in the media. The 51-year-old sports analyst pointed out how communities rely on cops in cleaning up the neighborhood only to cry racial profiling when the police ends up doing their job.
“We have to look at ourselves in the mirror,” Barkley said. “We as black people, we have a lot of crooks. There is a reason that they racially profile us in the way they do. Sometimes it is wrong, and sometimes it is right.”
Barkley applauded those who choose to peacefully protest for Michael Brown. He cited examples like the NFL players who protested before a recent game by doing the “hands up, don’t shoot” gesture last Sunday. “Anybody who walks out peacefully, who protests peacefully, that’s what this country was built on,” Barkley noted. “But to be burning peoples’ property, burning police cars, looting peoples’ stores, that is 100 percent ridiculous.”
In the tell-all interviews that are quickly making rounds in social media, Barkley also talked about Chris Rock’s comment about salary disparities and how Obama should enact a harsher measure to stop the spread of terrorist group, ISIS. “We need to put some bodies on the ground and shoot them dead.”