Charles Barkley is the most impolitic Black man on television. Whether you attribute this to his age, the socioeconomic dynamics of his childhood, or simply his natural straight-forward personality, the fact is that he shoots straight from the hip without any desire to parse his own words through an internal self-editing mechanism. His tactlessness causes him to frequently say things that come out so clumsily and impolitic that they cause massive push-back, but contain many truisms central to his worldview on a base level. That idea is exactly what ran through my head before I heard his comments on Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, and the drama he’s going through with some of his teammates allegedly believing he’s “not Black enough.”
In response to that story, Barkley went on the “Afternoons with Anthony Gargano and Rob Ellis” radio show and said:
“Unfortunately, as I tell my white friends, we as Black people are never going to be successful, not because of you white people, but because of other Black people. When you are Black, you have to deal with so much crap in your life from other Black people.
For some reason we are brainwashed to think, if you’re not a thug or an idiot, you’re not Black enough. If you go to school, make good grades, speak intelligent, and don’t break the law, you’re not a good Black person. It’s a dirty, dark secret in the Black community.
There are a lot of black people who are unintelligent, who don’t have success. It’s best to knock a successful black person down because they’re intelligent, they speak well, they do well in school, and they’re successful. It’s just typical BS that goes on when you’re black, man.”
It’s important to read Barkley’s comments completely and not chopped into segments, because it shows his running thought pattern and it gives his words full context. However, there are some problems uttered throughout, including the notion that Black folks are a monolithic group that can be generalized in overly-simplistic terms. In fact, his comments almost erase the concept of class division, which is a huge reality in the Black community.
I’ve lived in the middle class for the greater part of my life, and I’ve never seen other middle class Black folks deride one another for not being “gangster” enough or not learning. In fact, getting left back in school or having a report card full of Ds and Fs was a great point of embarrassment for me and other Black kids growing up. Being uneducated and unsuccessful is not a tenet of Black life in upper class or middle class communities. And Barkley’s generalizations continue to fall short when you realize that his comments don’t exemplify all or even most Black folks in the hood. There are more than a few Black parents in disadvantaged neighborhoods teaching their children to excel academically, and there are far more than a few Black children/teens in the projects who think that being uneducated and unsuccessful is cool. The fact that Blacks are enrolling in college/university at a record pace, contrasted against a rapidly declining high school dropout rate, tells you that African-Americans of all socioeconomic classes are embracing things some folks consider “acting white.”
But, stats aside, that does NOT make Barkley’s comments wrong, because tactless doesn’t mean incorrect. The crabs in a barrel mentality that may or may not have been enacted in the Seahawks locker room is just as real as the actual crabs pulling each other down in barrels off the port of Seattle. Because so many Black folks do not have a monopolizing mentality like people of other cultures, we believe we can only get in where we fit in, and if another Black person gets in, it’s our individual loss, instead of our collective gain. Instead of saying, “I don’t like Tyler Perry movies, so I’m going to throw my support behind another Black filmmaker so they can get their stories out there,” we say “I don’t like Tyler Perry movies, so I’m going to throw my support behind another Black filmmaker so they can replace his ass!” While other communities embrace their community’s successes, there are members of our community that view other Blacks successes as an affront to their own goals.
To keep it real, I actually appreciate everything Charles Barkley says whether I agree with him or not, because it’s authentic. And genuine authenticity can sometimes shed a much needed light on a topic others are too scared or too political to touch. I’m glad that Barkley stood by his comments and I’m glad that he had an opportunity to stand by his comments and add more context in an interview with Vibe yesterday, in which he said:
“There’s a stigma that when you’re doing well in school, you’re ‘acting white,’ or when you speak correct, you’re ‘acting white,’ that’s bulls**t. You’re supposed to speak intelligent, you’re supposed to do well in school, and when Blacks denigrate other Blacks who are doing well, that’s part of the problem.”
You may not like his delivery or his penchant to overgeneralize, but that mentality does exist and it needs to be called out.
LAB
Lincoln Anthony Blades blogs daily on his site ThisIsYourConscience.com, he’s an author of the book “You’re Not A Victim, You’re A Volunteer” and a weekly contributor for UPTOWN Magazine. He can be reached via Twitter @lincolnablades and on Facebook at This Is Your Conscience.