Add Charles Barkley to the chorus calling on the NBA to move its 2017 All Star Game from Charlotte after North Carolina lawmakers passed what critics call the America's harshest anti-LGBT bill.
Barkley, an NBA Hall of Famer and current analyst for the NBA on TNT, made his comments in a recent CNN interview.
SEE ALSO:The NBA has a chance to take a powerful stand for LGBT rights. Will it?“I think the NBA should move the All-Star Game from there next year," Barkley told Fredricka Whitfield. "As a black person, I’m against any form of discrimination – against whites, Hispanics, gays, lesbians, however you want to phrase it. It’s my job, with the position of power that I’m in and being able to be on television, I’m supposed to stand up for the people who can’t stand up for themselves.”
North Carolina legislators passed a bill Wednesday that bars cities and counties in the state from passing their ownrules to protect LGBT people from discrimination. It's been decried by critics from across the country and the advocacy group Equality NC calls it the "worst anti-LGBT bill in the entire nation."
The NBA released a statement on March 24 saying that it's "deeply concerned" about the law but unsure of what impact it could have on 2017 All Star festivities. City officials in Atlanta have volunteered their city as a possibly alternative location.
Barkley also offered some thoughts about the 2016 presidential election in his CNN appearance.
"It's become about rich people screwing poor people," he said. "Poor people in this country don't have the same economic opportunity, they're not in the same neighborhoods, they don't have the same schools. So I just feel saddened because their job as politicians is to take care of the people. So I feel sadness more than anything, about how they're dividing us up."
But Barkley wasn't done there.
"America has done an awful job of taking care of people," he added later.
You can watch the full interview here.
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