I May Be Wrong But I Doubt It - Charles Barkley [6]
He’s in there for problems of his own, namely aggression and lashing out. Does he talk about his own anger management? No. Did the interviewers who talked to him ask him about that? Apparently not. It seemed to be “What do you think about today’s black athlete?” and he just started bashing guys, saying the same crap he’s said for the last thirty years, and a lot of it is simply not true, or it was said without any knowledge of the people he’s criticizing.
I don’t want to hear from anybody that I’m afraid to speak up. But I’m not going to bash guys who don’t. Some guys want to and can’t, some don’t feel they know enough, or they don’t want to get ripped for taking a stand. I know this for a fact because when I do something like the role model commercial for Nike, or pose for the cover of Sports Illustrated, symbolically breaking out of chains, I’ll start getting phone calls from brothers asking me, “Man, how’s it going?” I say, “Sonofabitch, you know how it’s going: I’m getting hammered.” They say, “I feel you, I want to join you. I want to say something, but . . .”
I got some great advice once from Clarence Thomas: he told me to always try to control your message. So I’ve learned that. I know sometimes everybody wants to kill me, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to give them the hammer to do it. I pick my battles. It’s just that some of them, like racism and prejudice, are tough battles. Those are battles worth fighting.
Keeping It Real
When you’re black and you become wealthy, or become successful to a degree that is still uncommon, you’re trapped in a way. I remember the first time I heard Allen Iverson say, “I want to keep it real.” Well, his real at this point is that he’s one of the best professional basketball players in the world and a huge celebrity in America making $15 million to $20 million a year. That’s keeping it real for him.
My “real” is no longer the existence of a little kid in Alabama growing up in the projects on welfare. My real is what I am today. That “keeping it real” shit is irrelevant, or ought to be. It’s only relevant to the people who want you not to grow and experience new things in your life. So, if you achieve and become accomplished, you’re caught in a trap. This definitely has to be a black thing, some garbage we put on each other. I wanted to keep up with all my old friends, because I don’t want them to think I’ve changed. But you do change. You grow and you mature, and you don’t want to do that same nonsense you used to do. I don’t want to do the same stuff anymore. You’re supposed to grow into new interests and into new relationships and friendships. I try to tell these guys now when they start talking about “keeping it real” that they’re not some little “hood-rat” anymore, and I’m not some kid running around in the projects. You’re a professional athlete who, most likely, went to college and put yourself in a whole new culture that is diverse racially and economically and socially.
You’re now making somewhere between $1 million and $10 million a year and you ought to be trying to have a positive impact on something because you can. That’s your reality. That’s keeping it real now. If you’re trying to act as if you’re the same guy you were at sixteen, that’s the furthest thing from keeping it real. That’s keeping it phony, and it’s total BS.
I’m nearly forty years old, have traveled all around the world, met presidents and kings. Damn, I met Princess Diana, met Prince Albert of Monaco. So I’m not that same kid from the projects of Leeds, Alabama. If I’m that same guy now, all these years later with all this money and opportunities and mentors . .