Barkley’s Message Is Loud, Not Clear

Charles Barkley has given the media of Philadelphia a choice: “You can kiss my behind. Or you can try and get me traded.”

I suspect they will try to get him traded.

Is there racism in and around professional basketball? Barkley says there is. He also says that he has more to say. That we haven’t heard the last of this.

Good, because I want to hear it.

A lot of people don’t. A lot of people wish Charles would shut his big mouth.

Not me. I’m interested. I want to know more.

As a white guy, I’ve got no business yet telling Charles Barkley he’s wrong. That it’s all in his head.

Because maybe it isn’t.

Maybe I’m the one with blinders on, because I’m the one who thought that the only black-vs.-white dispute in basketball was which color of shoe to wear.

I thought the NBA was a colorful, color-blind place, the most progressive in sports, a rainbow coalition in which African-American athletes could thrive, have access to coaching positions and become general managers.

The Denver Nuggets were sold to minority investors, which is more than pro football or baseball clubs can say. The commissioner of the Continental Basketball Assn. is one of the few African-Americans to have been empowered to run an entire league.

But Charles Barkley makes me wonder if things are not as rosy as they might appear.

Barkley is no fool. He periodically says or does foolish things, as do most of us. But sometimes the loudest people have the most to say.

And what Barkley is saying now is that there are those who still “want their black athletes to be Uncle Toms,” those who should realize that these are the 1990s and “we do what we want to do.”

Could this be true?

Michael Jordan, nobody’s fool, reacted to Barkley’s latest statements by saying: “Everything he says has some truth to it. You have to be in the game to know.”

Man, if even Michael Jordan is encountering some form of racism, I would like to know what he means.

If we are talking here about some Archie Bunker-brained fan or David Duke disciple who sits in the stands mouthing epithets, that’s one thing. I am unsure what to do about that, short of turning the other cheek.

One jerk spat out so many foul words one night last season, Barkley was provoked into spitting back. Trying to fight fire by dousing it, he succeeded only in spitting on an innocent adolescent by mistake.

Such behavior painted a picture of Barkley as a vulgarian and hurt his credibility. Yet when Nelson Rockefeller responded to a heckler with a notorious hand gesture, he was portrayed as nothing worse than a dignified statesman letting off some steam.

Barkley so often fights back--with his fists recently against some character in Milwaukee--that he is sometimes dismissed as a loose cannon who can’t be taken seriously.

This is, after all, the same man who claimed recently that he was misquoted in his own so-called autobiography.

“I should have read it first,” Barkley said.

Since this season began, Barkley seemingly has gotten angrier and angrier. For starters, he charged that the 12th and last man on the Philadelphia roster undoubtedly would be a Caucasian because management and the customers would never tolerate an all-black team. Philadelphia, Barkley said, was “a racist city.”

Some in the city of brotherly love did not agree with brother Charles. To unfairly start a white player would be one thing; to merely keep one white player on the bench could be construed as nothing more than reverse minority employment.

All that eventually was proved was that 12 black players, poorly mixed, could put together as poor a record as 12 white players, poorly mixed. Philadelphia’s team is not very good.

Charles Barkley, however, is. The only thing Barkley is not is a champion.

And that gnaws at him. It is, I believe, the principal reason he is doing his best--or possibly his worst--to bring about a trade. He mentions it at every opportunity.

Barkley perceives, and has acknowledged in interviews, that he will never gain the enduring respect of Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird unless he becomes part of a championship team. And he does not believe Philadelphia can become one.

His contention, however, is that any questioning of his integrity, ability or performance could be rooted in racial prejudice. Barkley didn’t appreciate anybody second-guessing the three-point shot he missed in the final half-minute of a loss to the Chicago Bulls.

My guess is that Barkley believes nobody would have begrudged Bird that shot.

Yet if this issue is racially motivated, I would argue that Boston fans would have disapproved of Kevin McHale taking that shot, but would have approved of, say, Reggie Lewis taking it.

Or is there something more to what Barkley is saying? Something, as a white guy, I don’t understand, won’t understand and never will understand?

I really don’t know.

When two Detroit Pistons five years ago commented that Bird was overrated, then apologized, I saved an essay by William Sampson, a Northwestern sociology professor, a portion of which read:

“It’s all part of the plan. The plan to have a Great White Hope in a sport that is dominated by blacks. Indeed, even the players come to believe Mr. Bird’s press clippings, and that stuff the announcers spout about how he is the best and smartest player in the game. He is nowhere near being either.”

Prof. Sampson saw racism where I saw none. But perhaps his viewpoint was better than mine.

Charles Barkley, too, sees racism that I cannot see. That’s why I want to hear more.

Charles, don’t shut up.

Speak up.