In an interview on ESPN radio’s Dan Le Batard show Tuesday, Barkley said black people have ‘got to do better’ in response to last week’s shootings of black men by police and the sniper attack that left five officers dead in Dallas.
He said that it bothers him that black people ‘never get mad when black people kill each other. We never get mad when black people kill each other, which has always bothered me.’
Barkley went on to say that he didn’t think racial profiling was right but that he could see why white officers stereotype black people because ‘some are crooks’.
“Dan, I’ve been black all my life, most black people I know are killed by other black people.”
Barkley reiterated that he can sympathize with the pressure of their job.
“There’s no doubt in my mind if I’m fighting with a guy and I hear somebody scream gun, and I got a gun, I’m going to shoot the guy…….We gotta look at the big picture. We have to work with the cops because we need the cops. If it wasn’t for the cops, we’d be living in the Wild Wild West.”