Charles Barkley Addresses Protests and NBA Strike After Jacob Blake Shooting: It’s ‘Exhausting’ Being Black in America
Outspoken NBA Hall-of-Famer Charles Barkley weighed in the impromptu NBA strike in solidarity with the protests over the Jacob Blake shooting, calling out the ongoing racial injustice and saying “It’s exhausting being Black” in America.
Speaking with CNN Situation Room anchor Wolf Blitzer, Barkley hailed the courage of the Milwaukee Bucks players for refusing to play and then offered a poignant reaction to the latest instance of violence against an unarmed black man, in this case the point blank shooting of Jacob Blake in the back by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
“If you look at the last, just in the last couple months going back to Ahmaud Arbery, Mr. [George] Floyd, the young lady screaming at the black guy in New York, now you’ve got Mr. Blake who just got shot, it is something all the time,” a weary Barlkey said. “I admire these guys for standing up, but, Wolf, it is exhausting being black because there is a double standard when you are black because I have to comment on everything that happens in the black community, and it just gives — the same thing with LeBron [James] who is our most prominent player but, man, you get tired of something all the time.”
Moments later, Blitzer aired a clip of Los Angeles Clippers head coach Doc Rivers, whose emotional outburst about the Blake shooting on Tuesday night quickly went viral.
“What is your reaction, Charles, when you hear Doc speak like that?” Blitzer asked.
“It was powerful,” Barkley said. “And I don’t think a lot of people know Doc Rivers’ dad was a cop. So he knows about all this stuff first hand. He’s got to be torn. If my father was a cop and all this stuff was going on, you’ve got to be torn. But, man, I think the point he was trying to make, what I was saying earlier, is always something going on that we have to talk about.”
“We just can’t play basketball and live normal lives. There is something always racially happening,” Barkley said. “When you are a celebrity you have to speak on it. It is a double standard. That’s just how it is. But it does get to be exhausting all the time and you see the same thing keep happening over and over.”
Watch the video above, via CNN.
