Charles Barkley is looking to arouse critical dialogue about America’s longstanding race issue. The NBA legend and sports analyst will host an unscripted series on TNT where “race, class and cultural differences” are the main focus. The network has ordered six hour-long episodes of the show tentatively titled, “The Race Card” where Barkley will dissect racial ideologies and test their validity.

Here is a description of the show from a TNT press release.

In The Race Card, Charles Barkley wants to bust up the echo chamber mentality that so often has people retreating to corners of the like-minded, where views are reinforced and ideas are distorted into angry, unexamined groupthink conclusions. Each week, Barkley will take on the rapidly calcifying positions around today’s hot-button topics. He will seek out the sharpest and most varied viewpoints from today’s cultural leaders and tastemakers. He will then challenge and probe those ideas, even trying them out on himself.

“We as Americans never discuss the issue of race in this country and how it impacts everything in our lives until something bad happens,” Barkley said in a statement.

Where has he been the last 50 years?

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Photo: Giphy

Barkley went on to say, “I see this project as a way to talk about race, class and cultural differences and challenge everyone’s status quo.”

Back in 2014, Barkley received criticism for his comments regarding the aftermath of Mike Brown’s killing in Ferguson, Missouri.

In response to the riots and looters, he told CNN, “We as black people, we have a lot of crooks. We can’t just wait until something like (the Brown shooting) happens. We have to look at ourselves in the mirror.”

Barkley went on to give his diagnosis of society’s unfair treatment of black people. “There is a reason that they racially profile us in the way they do. Sometimes it is wrong, and sometimes it is right,” Barkley said.

The Race Card is set to debut early next year.


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