Back in March 1992, Charles Barkley’s Philadelphia 76ers lost out to Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls, 103-99. What made the narrow loss worse was that the 76ers’ star player, Chuck himself, ended up missing a late 25-yard shot which resulted in the loss. The media, however, responded horribly, and ended up questioning Chuck’s judgment after head coach Jim Lynam initially called his shot ‘ill-advised.’
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Barkley, in typical fashion, instead of trying to answer the accusations, ended up making some heavy accusations of his own. Chuck claimed that the questions that were being raised about him were a result of racism. Claiming that he had to suffer from negative attention throughout his time in Philadelphia, Chuck hilariously asked the reporters to ‘kiss his a**,’ according to Barkley: A Biography by Timothy Bella.
“I’m a ’90s N,” he proclaimed. “The [Philadelphia] Daily News, the Inquirer has been on my back. Everything I do is wrong. They want their athletes to be Uncle Toms. I told you White boys you never heard of a ’90s N-. We do what we want to do,” he had said, before hilariously giving a high-five to Ahmad Rashad, who was the NBA on NBC sideline reporter and could not help but laugh.
Rashad’s laughter came in a room filled with white reporters, who were all, as one would expect, in pin-drop silence. “It’s always a racial thing,” Charles said. “Racism always exists. I’m going to be a little more vocal now. Striking back at you guys. I’m going to do what I want to do. And you’ve got two choices: you can kiss my behind or you can try to get me traded,” he proclaimed, effectively ensuring that the media would think twice about criticizing him, in the future.
Of course, Barkley’s issues with the Philadelphia Daily News in general, eventually subsided. The 1992 season proved to be his last, in Philadelphia, after which he spent four years at the Phoenix Suns.
Charles Barkley has had to deal with racism innumerable times during NBA career
There is little doubt that Chuck arrived in the NBA at a time when racism was still apparent. While the league had seen a range of black superstars already, a number of them have often explained the kind of double standards they had to deal with, during that era.
That is true for Chuck as well, who once decided to strip down to his boxers on a Milwaukee sidewalk, in a bid to ward off racist attackers, in 1991. The player had been privy to different forms of racism throughout and often talked about the situation in public as well.
Recently, in March 2023, Barkley went into detail, explaining how while things were terrible during his time, they have only hardly improved, according to Basket News.
“One thing that frustrates me — and we are all Black athletes just for the record — because anytime something happens racially, they come to us. I’m pretty sure White reporters didn’t run up on Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers, ‘What do you think?’ It’s a really unfair double standard,” he had said.
Barkley effectively claimed that while the situation was not as bad as before, there were still certain double standards that Black athletes were subjected to by the media, especially when it came to racial matters.
