Decoding Sir Charles: An Open Letter to Charles Barkley

Dear Sir Charles,

Throughout your playing career and on through your post playing days into your second career as an NBA analyst you’ve always used your position in the media spot light to say what others were thinking but afraid to say (for better and worse). That’s one of the attributes that I and many others have always enjoyed about you and moreover one of the main reasons why you’re employed to opine in the first place. Being an outspoken person myself I find it hard not to appreciate those who have the testicular fortitude to wade into topical conversations that border the taboo. Your latest foray into controversial waters however leaves a whole lot to be desired. You were posited a question about what you thought of the UNSUBSTANTIATED  reports out of the Seattle Seahawks locker room that Russell Wilson was not considered black enough by some of his teammates. Your retort to the rather loaded question was the greatest gift to Merica and the Tea Party Patriots that want their “country back” since their lord and Savior Ronald Reagan ruled the world…

“Unfortunately, as I tell my white friends, we as black people, we’re never going to be successful, not because of you white people, but because of other black people. When you’re black, you have to deal with so much crap in your life from other black people. It’s a dirty, dark secret; I’m glad it’s coming out. It comes out every few years. I wrote a big chapter  it in my book about it to be honest with you. I said that when young black kids when they do well in school the losers kids say ‘oh you’re acting white’ the kids who speak intelligently they tell them that they are acting white. So it’s a dirty dark secret in the black community–one of the reasons why we are never going to be successful as a whole is because of other black people and for some reason We are brainwashed to think that if you’re not a thug or an idiot you’re not black enough– if you go to school make good grades speak intelligent and don’t break the law you’re not a good black person. It’s a dirty dark secret Anthony. I heard Stephen A talking about it. It ah um(inaudible jive) I hate to bring white people into our crap but as a black person we all go through it when you’re successful. One of the reasons a lot of black players go broke is because when you’re successful your friends say “oh you ain’t cool’ or ‘you ain’t down no more’ then you end up giving all your money to these damn losers and going broke again. But it’s a dirty dark secret in the black community that a lot of black people who are unintelligent who don’t have success is best to knock successful black person down with their intelligence they speak well they do well school and they are successful uh I mean think about it… its crabs in the barrel. I mean we’re the only race that tells people if you don’t have street cred, that means that been arrested. Like that’s a compliment.  We are the only ethnic group that says ‘hey if you go to jail that give you street cred’ that’s the typical bs that goes on when you’re black man. Don’t waste a lot of time on it please because it’s just so um (inaudible)- Russell Wilson has a-Uh I don’t know Russell Wilson , I met him and said hello but just because he studies the play book all the time and does not go out clubbing and things like that I guess some of the other players–(more inaudible jibber jive)you see what happened with Percy Harvin they wanted him to do crazy things but he did not want to do them ~Charles Barkley

I’m not sure if it’s because you were once my favorite player or if I feel bad about the fact that your subjects and verbs remain in perpetual fight mode every time you open your mouth, But I feel an extra level of patience with you and your latest respectable negro diatribe. So much so that I’m writing this open scribe with the hope that you might read it and learn a thing or two about black people since you are obviously disconnected. Due to the non-nuanced highly conflated and context-less nature of your soliloquy it’s almost impossible to do a point by point repudiation so I’m just going to leave a few points for you to ponder based on some of what you mumbled during your radio interview on Afternoons with Anthony Gargano and Rob Ellis.

Points to ponder

1.”Unfortunately, as I tell my white friends, we as black people, we’re never going to be successful, not because of you white people, but because of other black people. When you’re black, you have to deal with so much crap in your life from other black people. It’s a dirty, dark secret; I’m glad it’s coming out. It comes out every few years” ~ CB

Charles kiss

First and foremost unintelligent whites have done far more damage to the black family’s plight (and their own)than unintelligent blacks ever could. It was unintelligent whites that championed, voted to keep and even fought and died to preserve the system of chattel slavery. This is despite the fact that free slave labor meant less jobs for them and all but eliminated them as competition for the plantation owning elites within their agrarian industry. It’s unintelligent whites who have voted to keep segregation and disenfranchisement of blacks  in place, unintelligent whites are the ones that voted for all of these wars that we are still in the midst of–even though it would be them and their progeny dying and not the “intelligent  white men” that ordered these wars. It was unintelligent whites that voted for Bush and Cheney despite their looting of the national treasury. Unintelligent whites knew that Dick Cheney left the CEO’s seat at Halliburton to become the Vice President of the United States but those same unintelligent white folks never questioned the no bid tax payer funded contracts in the billions and those same unintelligent white men not even ten years later have zero recollection of their culpability when discussing the trillions in debt that their guys dug this country in. And just like yourself those unintelligent white folks are blaming the black guy and the minority black population that supports him.

2. “I wrote a big chapter it in my book about it to be honest with you. I said that when young black kids when they do well in school the losers kids say ‘oh you’re acting white’ the kids who speak intelligently they tell them that they are acting white”~ CB

WTF is a big chapter in the first place? Did you mean to say a fairly large chapter? Second of all why would you dedicate such a “big chapter” of your book to such an outdated and debunked stereotype? Ever since I was in grade school being dumb or being in special ed was never a cool thing.  I also find it funny that you would broach the topic of speaking improper English–have you ever heard yourself speak? You have the diction of a run away slave and you are talking about blacks berating other blacks and calling them white just because they know how to speak? C’mon Chuck! You coined the word “Turrable” dude– you should have known better than to go there.

3.”It’s crabs in the barrel. I mean we’re the only race that tells people if you don’t have street cred, that means that been arrested. Like that’s a compliment. We are the only ethnic group that says ‘hey if you go to jail that give you street cred’ that’s the typical bs that goes on when you’re black man.”~CB

Were we crabs in the barrel when we were paying $120 for your CB34 Nike basketball shoes? Were we crabs in a barrel when we bought your jersey and the myriad other products that you were hired to be the pitch man for? Speaking of crabs in a barrel did it ever dawn on you that a barrel  is not necessarily a crabs natural habitat or environment? Crabs in a barrel are essentially headed for slaughter–how are they supposed to act? By likening black people to crabs in a barrel you are acknowledging the precarious position that black people are in while at the same time blaming them for the actions of those that are oppressing them or sending them to slaughter.  Also when you threw that 5 foot 2,  110 pound man through a plate glass window and resisted arrest way back in 1997, were you trying to get your street cred up or nah? How about the time you got that DUI charge 2008–you know the one where you told the arresting officer  “You want the truth?..I was gonna drive around the corner and get a blow job”.

Drunk charles

4. “Don’t waste a lot of time on it please because it’s just so um (inaudible)- Russell Wilson has a-Uh I don’t know Russell Wilson , I met him and said hello but just because he studies the play book all the time and does not go out clubbing and things like that I guess some of the other players–(more inaudible jibber jive)you see what happened with Percy Harvin they wanted him to do crazy things but he did not want to do them”~CB

This last part makes your cringe worthy rant all the more dubious. You don’t know Russell Wilson, you never said more than hello to the guy, these unsubstantiated reports come out and you take the rumor and run with it. You have zero insight into what’s going on in the Seattle Seahawk locker room. Your dearth of knowledge as it pertains to the black community is even greater. The more that I think about it I I’m inclined to believe that with your knowledge and consent Anthony Gargano and Rob Ellis purposely and specifically sought you out to convey this kind misguided missive to their mostly white audience to assuage and placate their guilt so they could comfortably embrace the faux post-racial times that we live in. I can understand this sort of House Nigger behavior coming from the nominally talented black folks like Stephen A Smith and Don Lemon but you are part of the 1 percent. And by 1 percent I am not referring to your bank account. I’m referring to the god given athletic prowess that enabled you to be the success story that you are. You should not have to stoop to such great levels to curry favor with white America. You’re a hall of famer for Christ Sake stop acting like Felicia and channel your inner Bill Russell.

Bye man!

Charles in drag

The Coon Conductor Awards: Top Ten Coons in 2014

coon (kun) 

n.

usage: Definition 5 is a slur and should be avoided. It is used with disparaging intent and is perceived as highly insulting.

n.

1.  short for raccoon.
2. A term born from the minstrel show movement
3. A racist term that whites used to disparage and humiliate blacks
4. A modern day term ascribed to black people who purposely and overtly disrespect  other black people (and black culture) for the express purpose of ingratiating themselves with white conservatives for monetary gain, societal perks or simple pats on the head.
5. Black people who affirm, uphold, support or in anyway agree with the white supremacist construct in America and abroad

example: Steve Harvey (honorable mention) is channeling his inner coon by offering up the black youth that his organization mentors as pawns in Paula Deens public relations re-branding scheme.

Malcolm on Steve

Now calling a black man a coon is highly offensive. It’s damn near fighting words. So in the interest of fairness and intellectual honesty all of the forthcoming nominees for the 2014 Captain Coon crown will be accompanied by at least one full context verbatim so that they can convey in their own words how and why they made it to the top ten percentile of such a dubious category. Without further ado I present to you the top ten coons of today (from least to greatest).

 10. Don Lemon

Don Lemon

Now if you compare Don Lemon to some of the coons that will follow him on this list you will find that his slights to the African-American community at the behest of ingratiation with the dominant Caucasian population is rather innocuous. In fact compared to some of Don Lemon’s fellow Coon Conductor nominees he’s H Rap Brown. Although Don’s offenses towards the culture are not as egregious, constant or overt as most that will make this list, as a black man with a national media profile and platform he too often is guilty of lazy thinking and political expediency when discussing matters germane to the interest and survival of African-Americans.

Bill O’Reilly famously went on a rant berating black culture with the express purpose of changing the national dialogue from racial profiling, unequal protection under the law for blacks and Zimmerman getting away with murdering Trayvon Martin to black people being cultural pariahs.

Don responded to this ridiculously racist rant by saying “He’s got a point. In fact, he’s got more than a point. In my estimation, he doesn’t go far enough.”

Even though he knew this was the aim all along (to change the conversation) he helped Bill O’Reilly do it and then had teh audacity to have an issue with those that took umbrage to his coonsign.

9. Stephen A Smith

StephenSmith-backs mark cuban

Like Don Lemon the level of coonery that Stephen A Smith displays on a daily basis pales in comparison to the coonery practiced by the rest of this list but his coon credentials are far too authentic to ignore. Mr. Smith got himself in deep hot water with many in the black community for his co-sign and subsequent doubling down of Marc Cubans bigoted comments. Many were shocked but I was not. Stephen A Smith boarded the coon train way back in 2009 while making a cameo appearance on conservative talk show hosts Mark Levin’s radio show.

In a not so clever set up Mark Levin lobbed a soft ball question about the new black president and the job that he was doing to Stephen A Smith and in classic coon conditioning Mr.Smith hit it out of the park for a grand coon home run. Now criticizing the first black president does not in and of itself make one a coon–there’s plenty of legitimate things to criticize this president about. However criticizing the first black president for doing the right thing and using half baked conservative talking points makes you a certified coon.

Mark Levin: “What do you make of what’s going on today, with all of the government push and all racism charges and the rest of that stuff?”

Stephen A Smith: Well I’m disturbed to be quite honest with you… I’m very very disturbed. You know as an African American growing up in the streets of New York City I understand what poverty is all about… I understand what trials and tribulations mean but at the same time I’m looking at what we are witnessing from our president, a man I voted for, a man that I was proud to vote for at the time simply because from a historical perspective what he represented and then I’m looking at  what I consider to be a government take over.And I’m quite alarmed and I don’t think he campaigned on it. I know that his record was radical. I listen to Sean Hannity a lot and Sean makes it a point to say that every day but I certainly did not expect us to own 80 percent of AIG, I did not expect us to own part of the automobile industry…It’s one thing to put forth a 787 billion dollar stimulus package, but to drop on top of that a 410 billion omnibus package, a 3.6 trillion budget, a Cap and Trade bill and then to come with a universal healthcare that ultimately lends toward a government take over of  the healthcare system. I did not have to listen to Mark Levin, or Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh to recognize that this is something that should make all of us extremely uncomfortable because as a young black man growing up in the streets of New York City, no matter what you say about so many of the critics that were perceived as leaders within the community– people may have advocated for government intervention in terms of supervising things and making sure that we were all operating under a fair and equitable system but I don’t recall anybody–and I mean anybody  that has ever walked into the black community and advocated a government  take over of anything. It’s about handling your own business, grabbing yourself by your own bootstrap and lifting yourself up. We may all need assistance but a take over is an entirely different situation all together. I’m extremely uncomfortable with this and even more uncomfortable with the fact that race has become a part of the discussion. We all know racism exists to some degree but to act as it is as prevalent as it was years and decades ago is completely untrue and it serves to divide this nation which I thing is a catastrophic thing.

Mark Levin: Are you running for president because I’d vote for you!

It almost seems like he should be higher on the list huh?

8. Michael Steele

Mike Steele

When the conservative clarion call went out for a black face to provide cover for the rampant racism that the Tea Party and the rest of the GOP establishment  was about to unleash on America, Michael Steele was the loudest and proudest  voice to step to the plate. Micheal Steele lobbied , ran ,shucked jived and cooned for the job of chairman of the Republican National Committee. He narrowly beat out another coon (Ken Blackwell)for the job.  He beat Ken Coon Blackwell largely on the promise that he would be able to deliver the hip-hop vote to the GOP (he really said that). His exact words were that “the GOP needs a hip-hop make-over”. It became the biggest running joke of his short tenure as RNC chair. He was heavily lampooned for it…

…and even the president got in on the act.

And just like Coon Steele can’t tell the difference between laughing with folks or when folks are laughing at him. But his true coon showed when sat in the hot seat with none other than coon number 10 (Don Lemon) and unwittingly revealed what most observers already knew–that him being the first black chairman of the RNC was a direct response to the country electing it’s first black president. What’s even more astounding is the fact that he believed at the time that they were on equal footing.

At the end of the day, and moreover at the end of Steels’s very short stint as a leader of the fledgling republican party his appointment was a failure–For both the party and himself. The GOP still has a black problem  and Micheal Steele lost pretty much all of his political stock and capital. It’s so bad for that guy that he can’t even get a job working for the defacto communications arm of the GOP (Fox News). Instead he has to settle for being the conservative whipping boy on left leaning cable news outlets.

7. Herman Cain

Hermaine Caine

I’ve long been of the belief that conservative blacks (aka coons) were talent-less, witless, slow thinking extra mediocre individuals and no person in recent memory embodied that caricature as fittingly as Herman Cain did when his black face and calcified mind briefly became the front runner in the 2012 GOP primary race. His reign at the top of the loser leader board was ephemeral but the coontastic memories that he gave the world while leading in GOP nominees for that brief stint are priceless…

…from his penchant for pinching white women’s asses unsolicited to his viral classic brain freeze the dude was well worth the price of admission to this minstrel act. He is certainly one of the more entertaining coons to make the list.

6. Stacy Dash

Stacy Dash

Stacy resurrected her name from obscurity during the 2012 elections by taking to Twitter of all places to declare her support of the almost human Mitt Romney. In predictable fashion the Twitter back lash from Black Twitter was fast and furious. Months later she ends up getting a job as a Fox News contributor. Pretty clever for a clueless chick.

From clueless to cooning. Only in Merica!

5. Rev Jesse Lee Patterson

Jesse Lee Henderson

No caption needed…

4. Allan West

Allen West

The quote in the meme says it all. If that’s not enough to convince you of this clowns coonery I’m just gonna drop this here for your enjoyment

3. Larry Elder

Larry Elder

Like Allen West Larry Allen’s internal angst as it pertains to the black race that he was so unfortunately born into comes from a very deep place. It’s almost like he’s made at black people because he’s black. He unlike even Allen West who was able to parlay his forced military retirement into a one term congressional appointment has no discernible skill set or even end goal. He’s just cooning for the sake of being a coon. And a pretty damn angry one at that.

Now you know you cooning on another level when regular white folks–not even particularly altruistic ones are calling you out and questioning your absurd worldview.

2. Dr. Ben Carson

Ben Carson

Dr. Carson is one of the more unfortunate additions to this list. Blessed with gifted hands but saddled with a graceless mind. Dr. Carson is a classic example of book smarts not transferring to other areas of personal endeavor. This high ranking coon actually said before a white conservative audience that the Affordable Care Act was the worst thing since slavery.

1. Clarence Thomas

Uncle Clarence

This King Coon is perhaps the most insidious black force to ever oppose black people n America. His detriment to the African-American collective quest for equality is as unrivaled as it is unforgivable.

Uncle Thomas’s hit job on black america started long before George Bush Sr. tapped him to replace Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court Ronald Reagan tapped him to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) where he purposely buried claims to prevent blacks and other minorities from seeking redress from employment discrimination.

Now Justice Clarence Thomas in addition to being known as an Uncle Tom purest is know to be deftly silent on and off of the bench. It’s hard to get a succinct, in context verbatim from him to prove his coonhood so instead I will simply list his great contributions to white supremacy and towards raising the misery index for black Americans by way of his voting decision making on the bench.

Clarence Thomas’s on Civil Rights

  • Affirmative action forever discounts black achievements. (Oct 2007)
  • Analyzed and advocated unpopular positions on race. (Oct 2007)
  • Black problems should be solved by blacks. (Oct 2007)
  • Preferential policies should apply to disadvantaged whites. (Oct 2007)
  • Affirmative action has stigmatizing effects. (Oct 2007)
  • Questions “adverse impact”: blacks can catch up with whites. (Oct 2007)
  • Black problems should be solved by blacks. (Oct 2007)
  • Improve black lives, consistent with conservative values. (Oct 2007)
  • Censure Bob Jones University for interracial dating ban. (Oct 2007)
  • EEOC had difficulty enforcing equal opportunity laws. (Oct 2007)
  • Coloradans entitled to be hostile toward homosexual conduct. (Aug 2005)
  • Don’t recognize GLBT as a constitutionally-protected class. (Dec 2003)
  • Limit employer liability for sexual harassment by employees. (Jun 1998)
  • Employee must prove negligence to sue city for harassment. (Jun 1998)
  • Tension between affirmative help and undermining dignity. (Sep 1991)
  • Reaching out to minorities is OK; but no quotas. (Sep 1991)
  • Supports scholarships & internships for minorities & women. (Sep 1991)
  • Sodomy laws are uncommonly silly but states can enforce them. (Jun 2003)
  • 1st Amendment protects church’s anti-gay funeral pickets. (Mar 2011)
  • Sociological analysis insufficient to prove gender bias. (Jun 2011)
  • State laws should not protect gay rights. (May 1996)
  • Hate crimes must be separate crimes, not just for sentencing. (Jun 2000)
  • Miranda rights can be overruled by Congress. (Jun 2000)
  • Boy Scouts may exclude gay scoutmasters. (Jun 2000)

This truncated list does not even contain his most insidious decision to join justices Roberts,  Scalia,  Alito and  Kennedy to roll back the key provisions in the 1965 voting rights act making it harder for blacks to vote and easier for racist states to deny blacks and other minorities access to the polls.  Unlike the rest of the loud mouth coons that made this list Uncle Thomas puts his money where his mouth is. as a matter of fact he rarely uses his mouth. He’s been a silent assassin when it comes to killing the hopes and dreams of black America.

Congratulations Uncle Thomas! You are the 2014 Coon Conductor.

now can you please….

stop coonin