Ex-NBA Star Charles Barkley Rips Politicians for Creating Racial Division

NBA hall-of-famer Charles Barkley laid into politicians of all stripes — Democrats and Republicans alike — for promoting racial division in the country, saying they are trying to “make whites and blacks not like each other.”

Barkley, a former star forward with the Philadelphia 76ers, was speaking during CBS Sports’ broadcast of the Final Four on Saturday.

He was responding to a pre-game segment about Sen. Robert F. Kennedy alerting a crowd in Indianapolis — site of this year’s games — in 1968 that the Rev. Martin Luther King had been assassinated in Memphis.

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“Man, I think most white people and ​b​lack people are great people. I really believe that in my heart, but I think our system is set up where our politicians, whether they’re Republicans or Democrats, are designed to make us not like each other so they can keep their grasp of money and power. They divide and conquer,” said Barkley, who retired from the NBA in 2000.

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