Like I said, you're treading on a 100 year discourse here. And the result of the original discourse and it's legacy heavily tinges how these issues are viewed today.
That discourse of course, being the debate between Booker T Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois and the so called "Atlanta Compromise". Washington of course was a proponent of working within Jim Crow and accepting white political rule. Du Bois, initially favorable, turned into one of the biggest opponents, stating in no uncertain terms that our rights were just that and should be taken with no reservations. That's a simplification, but the crux of one of the most important political discussions in African American history.
The winner of course, would be Du Bois, and his belief in equality by any means necessary would be the backbone of black political theory into the current day. The Civil Rights movement, the Panthers, Black Power, all of those are the ideological descendents of W.E.B. Du Bois. And it's no coincidence that those are some of the most effective movements that we've seen with regard to securing our rights in this country.
With regard to Barkley, he's more Washington to Du Bois, and that's why he gets the face of respectability politics label. His tirade about "unintelligent blacks" was especially egregious because in his tirade, he has the audacity to mention "taking shit from black people" as if he's not doing the same thing he's complaining about. We have documented phenomena regarding how inner cities got that way, and it wasn't "crabs in a barrel" that made it happen. In fact it was the exact opposite in many cases, having to make do while being denied services provided to everyone else. It's very much moving the target after the bullet is shot and then calling out the person for missing.
We're not even a full generation removed from segregation. Schools were never fully integrated to begin with. We still have significantly more permissive uses of police force against us and adverse medical outcomes as a result of racial conditions. The same issues affecting white coal miners that we moved heaven and earth to fellate were the same that we saw in inner cities, only we got bootstraps instead of a bailout. When crack ravaged our communities, we got locked up, not an epidemic declaration. A black family on average has TEN TIMES less net worth than an average white family. Those aren't problems caused by "crabs in a bucket" mentality, those are systemic issues that people far more invested than Charles Barkley are breaking their backs to find the answers to.
So for Sir Charles to open his meathole and proclaim "unintelligent blacks" as the reason all these problems exist is Washington in a nutshell, only with the benefit of hindsight to tell us that Du Bois was the correct angle to take. How would you respond if someone told you the sole reason you are able to enjoy the rights you do today is actually the wrong way of doing things? You'd probably call them a giant dumbass and point to the fruits of your action huh?
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