Every time there’s a calamity in America, there are those people we just can’t stand to hear from: Like Alyssa Milano. Or worse, Kathy Griffin.
But there are those people we’d all like to hear from: Like Mike Rowe. Or better, Charles Barkley.
Barkley, the avuncular former NBA star with the terrible golf swing, is weighing in on the “defund the police” movement now sweeping the most “progressive” (read: regressive) cities in the county.
And he’s not a fan.
“We need the cops, most of the cops do a fantastic job, but instead of defunding and all this other stuff, let’s just do police reform. Everybody should be on board for that whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, conservative or liberal,” Barkley said Tuesday on CNN.
After George Floyd’s death on Memorial Day, calls emerged to wipe out all police departments across the country. Barkley said we all – all of us Americans – feel terrible about Floyd’s tragic death.
“This is not black or white, this is just about humanity,” Barkley said. “To see a grown man die before our eyes. If you’re not upset by that if you’re white, Jewish, Chinese, anything, there is something wrong with you.”
The baller mocked both Democrats and Republicans as “clowns,” saying they should join forces to move swiftly on police reform.
“The Democrats and the Republicans can’t even talk about police reform,” he said. “That’s the number one thing they should do before they do anything else. That’s something we have been talking about since [former NFL quarterback Colin] Kaepernick kneeled, and these clowns in the Democratic Party and Republican Party, that’s the number one thing they should do before they do anything else,” Barkley said.
Last week, Barkley came out in defense of New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, who social warriors sought to cancel after he said he would “never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country.”
“Drew Brees, whatever he said, I felt he talked about, hey the flag means different things to different people. But the way he was portrayed on television and radio today was not fair at all. Drew Brees has done some amazing things in New Orleans in his life, I’m not even talking about football,” Barkley said.
“He made a mistake in a statement. But this level of, ‘We’ve got to kill everybody who says something we don’t agree with’… I’m never going to go with the mob. I want to make it clear, I did not like what he said right away. But the vitriol and animosity and hatred that he’s gotten for the last 24 hours, I thought it was overkill. That’s just my personal opinion,” said the NBA icon.
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