Charles Barkley Calls for the NBA to Move the 2017 All-Star Game, and Makes My Head Spin

April 7, 2016
By: Dave Zirin

Charles Barkley is not consistent in who he stands up for. But like it or not, he’s relevant.

If I live to be 1,000 years old, I will never understand the politics of Charles Barkley. Given that the hoops legend and TNT NBA studio host has a platform across all media for his political insights and given that when he talks about the world off the athletic field, his often trenchant, no bullshit statements tend to go viral, what he says truly does matter. Yet the clarity of Barkley’s words are not matched by his politics. His world view is about as contradictory and confusing as seeing a portly six-foot-four power forward lead the NBA in rebounding and become a Hall of Famer. If Sir Charles’s politics are as jarringly divergent as his on-court presence, at least his game has never ceased to inspire. His off-court pontificating can make you cheer one moment and rage the next.

This week Barkley made a stirring call for the NBA to move the 2017 All-Star Game from Charlotte, North Carolina. The state has passed a brutal law, HB 2, targeting the LGBT community, with a laser-focus on the demonization of the transgender community. It is rare in the hyper-macho world of men’s sports to see courage in the face of anti-LGBT bigotry, especially from the stars of Barkley’s generation. But there he was on CNN saying, “As a black person, I’m against any form of discrimination—against whites, Hispanics, gays, lesbians, however you want to phrase it. It’s my job, with the position of power that I’m in and being able to be on television, I’m supposed to stand up for the people who can’t stand up for themselves. So, I think the NBA should move the All-Star game from Charlotte.”

It is a beautiful sentiment: “Standing up for people who can’t stand up for themselves.” Hearing them, I immediately thought of the words Dr. Martin Luther King spoke to Olympian John Carlos in 1968 about why he needed to go back to Memphis despite the death threats swirling around his head, saying, “I have to go back and stand for those that won’t stand for themselves, and I have to go back for those that can’t stand for themselves.”

Sure enough Barkley has similarly spoken out against racism and anti-immigrant hysteria and has verbally championed, like few others in public life, the economically ravaged. Barkley has said, “My No. 1 priority is to help poor people. In this country, 90% of the money is controlled by 10% of the people, and that’s not right”; and “It’s rich people vs. poor people and right now poor people are getting screwed.”

This week Barkley made a stirring call for the NBA to move the 2017 All-Star Game from Charlotte, North Carolina. The state has passed a brutal law, HB 2, targeting the LGBT community, with a laser-focus on the demonization of the transgender community. It is rare in the hyper-macho world of men’s sports to see courage in the face of anti-LGBT bigotry, especially from the stars of Barkley’s generation. But there he was on CNN saying, “As a black person, I’m against any form of discrimination—against whites, Hispanics, gays, lesbians, however you want to phrase it. It’s my job, with the position of power that I’m in and being able to be on television, I’m supposed to stand up for the people who can’t stand up for themselves. So, I think the NBA should move the All-Star game from Charlotte.”

It is a beautiful sentiment: “Standing up for people who can’t stand up for themselves.” Hearing them, I immediately thought of the words Dr. Martin Luther King spoke to Olympian John Carlos in 1968 about why he needed to go back to Memphis despite the death threats swirling around his head, saying, “I have to go back and stand for those that won’t stand for themselves, and I have to go back for those that can’t stand for themselves.”

Sure enough Barkley has similarly spoken out against racism and anti-immigrant hysteria and has verbally championed, like few others in public life, the economically ravaged. Barkley has said, “My No. 1 priority is to help poor people. In this country, 90% of the money is controlled by 10% of the people, and that’s not right”; and “It’s rich people vs. poor people and right now poor people are getting screwed.”