The Tracks (Why Charles Barkley is guilty of lyin' to boyz on the issueof race again)

"I didn't bruh!"

The big homie Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” Confucius jumped out of the whip sittin’ in front of the pool hall and said, “Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.” Then Oscar Wilde put his square down and shouted, “By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.”

Well playas…journalism definitely kept us in touch with the uneducated this week when the duns from ESPN and Jason Whitlock’s new site called ‘The Undefeated’ sold us some foolishness on Charles Barkley in an article entitled "Up From Leeds." Now I don’t know who to be more upset with, Chuck, Whitlock or ESPN? I’ll hold ESPN to a higher standard because the other two cats have been throwin’ black folks under the bus for years. I'm fired up at ESPN because nobody in the buildin' said, "Chuck don't tell that lie bruh!" Why am I surprised when Charles Barkley tells a boy that he grew up in Leeds, Alabama in the 1960’s and ‘70’s and didn’t experience any racism? Now is he again, tryin’ to increase his white audience by tellin’ boys that most black folks are just makin’ issues of race up or is he just that ignorant? Talk to me pimpin'!

Let’s keep it real or all the way 100, whichever comes 1^st! This dun was born in 1963 just 20 miles outside of Birmingham, Alabama. The same place that in 1964 some fools bombed the 16^th Street Baptist Church killin' four little black girls at Sunday school. The same year this cat was born civil rights activists launched a voter’s registration campaign which led to the the 1965 Selma March. It was where black and white folks marched from Selma to Montgomery to the Alabama State Capital  to demand the opportunity to vote! Have you ever heard of “Bloody Sunday?” People were beaten half to death just for the right to vote in the state of Alabama! The same state in which ole Chuck was raised at the same time but his life wasn’t affected by those events? 

Here’s my diehard Barkley fan screamin’ from the top of his lungs, “Jay he said that he personally didn’t face any racism growin’ up! You’re bein’ an idiot!” Am I playa? What affects one of us affects all of us. My kids didn't have to live in Ferguson to be affected by the events of last summer bruh! They didn't have to live in NYC to be affected by ole boy bein' choked to death by the police for sellin' loose cigarettes.You don't personally have to be assaulted to be damaged by it homeboy. 

Within this freakin’ article this dun said out of his own mouth that he was the first kid to integrate the elementary school that he attended. That means that he faced racism durin’ his life! If no other blacks had ever gone to the freakin’ school before then he was affected by this foolishness. It had an affect on his drive and passion to prove that he belongs. Don't tell me that it had no affect.

Then he goes on to say that his grandmother would walk him to school with her gun in her purse just in case something popped off. She wasn’t worried about the freakin’ GD Folks or the Vice Lords bruh! She was worried about the racists that didn’t want her grand baby to attend the same school that their children attended. The article goes on to say that his mother thanks the white man for allowin’ her to clean their houses to be able to take care of her kids. She was cleanin’ white folks houses Chuck because of racism! She, like my grandmother and most black women of that era in the south had to do because they couldn’t get a job doin’ anything else. That’s racism bruh!

Then these duns completely blew my mind with tryin’ to explain to me that Chuck didn’t experience racism in Leeds when to this very day the freakin’ town is separated down the middle, black from white, by the train tracks. The white folks stay on their side and the black folks stay on their side. Am I the only one here that can see that this is 100 percent racist?

Then these fools say that everybody got along just fine. Sure, they did! As long as the subservient doesn’t start demandin’ rights and privileges everything is cool. If you’re cool with livin’ on the black side of the tracks we’ll all get along just fine. Martin Luther King Jr. wasn’t assassinated because he was tryin’ to get along bruh. He was assassinated because he was buckin’ the system. The duns in Leeds were cool with the system that was in place and apparently they’re still cool with it today.

Sure, all towns were set up like that 50 years ago but if you told a boy that this is the way it is now he’d tell you that you were crazy. But Jason Whitlock and Co. and Chuck want us to believe that these aren’t examples of racism.

What kills me is that folks think that you’ve got to be called the N-word before it counts as racism. Listen up playas, whenever you treat someone differently because of the color of their skin its racism. And Chuck, just because folks didn’t call you out of your name doesn’t mean that you haven’t been affected by racism. The simple fact that you grew up in a town that had a clear separation of where blacks and whites could live affects every area of your life whether you want to believe it or not.

The passion that you’ve used to become a Hall of Fame basketball player and a successful analyst on TV is all wrapped up in the fact that somebody told you that you couldn’t live on the other side of the tracks when you were a kid. When you saw your mother get up every day to clean white folk’s houses because she wasn’t given other opportunities it drove you to become even better. Don’t tell me that you weren’t affected by racism because we all have been and still are today.

When you get to a point of success in your life you have the opportunity to shop at high end stores. I was returnin’ a purchase just yesterday and the little elderly white woman behind the counter looked me square in the eye and simply ignored me. I stood there for the next ten minutes just to see what I knew was goin’ to happen. Why? Because it’s happened so many times in my life that I can see it before it even puts its pants on in the morning. Like clockwork a white couple walked up and she immediately said, “May I help you?” I immediately interrupted her and said, “Ma'am, I’ve been standin’ here for at least 10 minutes, you looked right through me and when these fine lookin’ folks walked up, you asked if they needed help. Now am I just that invisible to you or what?” She didn’t call me the N-word but she was thinkin’ it playa.

So when you try to tell folks that look like you that you didn’t experience racism growin’ up in the 1960’s, ‘70’s ‘80’s, ‘90’s or 2000’s they’re gonna look at you sideways because either you’re that naïve, you’re stupid or you're runnin' game. What’s really your agenda bruh? Life is a lot better now than it was 50 years ago but if we’re gonna tell the story tell the truth. We’ve ALL been affected by racism in one way or another. Don’t try to increase your white audience by actin’ like the rest of us are crazy and just makin’ things up out here. In order to increase your audience you just need to be good and authentic playa. Not all people are racist but there is still racism in this world and we’re ALL affected by it. Love is the key to battlin' this foolishness not by tryin' to act like you weren't affected by it.  Stop me when I start lyin’!

Playas Thesaurus:

1) Whip: noun – luxury car, vehicle
2) GD Folks or Vice Lords: noun – black urban street gangs Holla At Ya Boy!
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