Charles Barkley pledged $1 million for Black women in Alabama to start up their own businesses.
But there was a catch.
Barkley insisted that he didn’t want Black women to start up certain types of businesses. Specifically, he didn’t want to see food and hair styling on the list.
“That does not mean restaurants and hair salons, black women,” he said on Thursday. “That means start-ups.”
Charles Barkley pledges $1m to black female startups pic.twitter.com/5v7dsuBvLY
— Hotep Nation (@HotepNation) December 15, 2017
Shaquille O’Neal seemed to think it was a funny joke and certainly had a good laugh about it, but Kenny Smith wasn’t going to let it slide.
“Why couldn’t you just leave it?” Smith asked. “Why did you have to do an under-handed, backhand joke? It was so good and serious.”
But Barkley insisted the “joke” was all in good fun.
“I like to have fun,” he said.
Celebrating Doug Jones’ win
Barkley made the announcement of his donation on Thursday to celebrate Doug Jones’ victory in Alabama. During the campaign, Barkley made no secret of his support for Jones, and he campaigned hard for the Democrat.
So when Jones had his historic upset victory on Tuesday, Barkley wanted to celebrate. And what better way to celebrate than to thank the Black women who came out to hand Jones his victory?
After all, exit polls showed that it was the Black vote that turned the deeply red state blue.
It’s just a shame that in trying to celebrate such a big victory, Barkley managed to denigrate Black female business owners at the same time. He probably should have just stuck to announcing his donation and then gotten out of the way so Black women could get things done.