Photo Credit: Brett Davis/USA TODAY Sports
One of the greatest basketball players ever who became the most entertaining NBA analyst, Charles Barkley, TNT is green lighting a six-episode series hosted by Barkley entitled “The Race Card”. The show will show Barkley traveling across the country to help “bust up the echo chamber mentality that so often has people retreating to corners of the like-minded, where views are reinforced and ideas are distorted into angry, unexamined groupthink conclusions,” according to the network. He plans on sitting down with various leaders within the communities and “challenge” their beliefs.
Barkley hopes that the documentary will help start conversations about race around the country. This comes after the multiple police-involved shootings, including the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile as well as the murders of police officers, including the five murdered in Dallas. Speaking about the recent violence, Barkley said
There’s a lot of people at fault. The cops have made some mistakes. Black people have made some mistakes. Until we stop …We have to sit back and be honest with each other. The cops have made some mistakes. That don’t give us the right to riot and shoot cops. We need the cops, especially in the black community. We as black people, we’ve got to do better. We never get mad when black people kill each other, which that always has bothered me. It’s always bothered me. And then, somebody is gonna scream like, ‘Well, you can’t change the subject.’ Well, first of all, I’ve never changed the subject. I’ve always said that, ‘We as black people, if you want respect, you have to give each other respect.
Barkley definitely will not have a problem expressing his opinion on his new show as he has never been one to shy away from discussing difficult issues. Conversations like this do need to be started around the country so we can learn to accept one another, however is Barkley the right guy for this role?
