I May Be Wrong But I Doubt It - Charles Barkley [49]
I could do my thing, make my money, go play golf and be happy, but is that all it’s supposed to be about? There aren’t that many black people in positions of power or influence. Especially on TV. And if you don’t use that position to speak up, it’s a wasted position.
I like doing TV, but in the second season I started to feel some negative vibes. In the first year I got all these plaudits for being honest and straightforward. But if you check the tapes I was talking mostly about basketball. I was doing pretty straight analysis. I didn’t stray too far that first season. I didn’t want to come in right away and start taking on certain social issues, even if they did relate to sports and specifically basketball. I figured I’d just take it easy and I got all this great feedback, I mean really great publicity. It was fun.
But this year I made a conscious decision to see where everybody was coming from. I talked one night about Michael Jordan and Tiger and what in the world it is people expect of them. And when I made that comment that Bobby Jones was probably rolling over in his grave after Tiger won his third Masters Green Jacket, people got a little uncomfortable. They were uncomfortable with me—but not with the fact that Bobby Jones was a bigot.
Somebody asked me about Notre Dame hiring Tyrone Willingham and how it represented progress. And my response was, “You’re asking me if it’s a big deal for any school to be hiring a black coach in 2002? That’s disgraceful.” I can’t believe any school would try to act like it’s doing a proven black coach a favor just to hire him. Didn’t ESPN do an entire Outside the Lines on that issue? In 2002, this is still a big deal? You’ve got to be kidding me. I just started saying what I feel, especially when it comes to the big issues of the day in sports. I hope people aren’t expecting me to just talk about so-and-so scoring 20 points when there’s real issue stuff going on. If you’re not going to deal with any significant subjects, what’s the point?
I enjoy trying to find that balance between addressing issues and entertaining. Most days, I think the media has the easiest job in the world, because funny stuff happens every day. I was riding the stationary bike one morning in a health club in Atlanta the day of a Turner broadcast. I was watching some program which was showing clips of all the funny stuff comedians said about Robert Blake. Man, he took a beating. . . . He deserved to take a beating ’cause indications are he killed somebody. Come on, now. He ate at that restaurant two days a week for twenty-five years, and that was the first time he ever took his wife? First time in twenty-five years? Guy went there so much the restaurant named an entrée after him. If you can’t get off some funny lines about Robert Blake, man, you shouldn’t even have been on the air.
You know the thing I want never to get caught up in? Ratings. I have zero respect for the ratings because I don’t know anybody who has a Nielsen box in his house. I ask people all the time when the subject of TV comes up, “Do you know anybody who has a Nielsen box at home?” I know a million people. How come I don’t know anybody who knows anybody who has a damn Nielsen box? How is that possible?
Sometimes I’ll find the ratings in the newspaper for the previous week and it’ll say some show was No. 1 and I’ll sit there and think, “We ain’t watching that!” I know they’re not taking any polls in the ghetto.
The two shows I think are the best shows on television are The Practice and Boston Public. They’ve got diverse casts. They’ve got story lines that make you think. They’ve got a point of view. And they’re definitely entertaining. Now, Friends is a show I never watched. I like Jerry Seinfeld as a guy. I think he’s funny. But I never watched Seinfeld when it was on in prime time. I watch it a lot of days now in syndication because my daughter watches it. But I don’t believe the ratings, and one of the reasons is that black folks and Hispanics lead the way in watching TV. They must not be measuring in the