Oh Geez… Now We’ve Gotta Talk About Race In The Super Bowl Too??

That’s what Charles Barkley would dearly love to know too.

Barkley was on the radio with Dan Patrick and he wondered why in the world ESPN was making this year’s Super Bowl all about race. Honestly, I think Charles Barkley is the only guy who’d have the cajones to say this out loud and get away with it. And thank goodness he did –

Barkley told host Dan Patrick that he feels ESPN is “framing the narrative” of Super Bowl 50 into “black versus white, good versus evil” since the matchup’s starting quarterbacks are Peyton Manning and Cam Newton.

 

“ESPN has already started their crap about black versus white, good versus evil and I know a lot of those fools over there got radio talk shows,” he said. “It really annoys the hell out of me. We really just can’t appreciate the greatness of Peyton [Manning]. And clearly, Cam is on the track to become one of the greatest players ever. You can already see them framing the narrative ‘black versus white, good versus evil.’”

Of course sports analysts would have to go and ruin something that should be above petty squabbles over stupid things like how much melanin a guy’s skin has. Which has about as much bearing on his athletic talent and success in football as the color of his jock strap does. But this being 2016 and the Age of Obama – EVERYTHING must be seen through the prism of race. It’s like Martin Luther King, Jr. never even happened.

For myself, I like Cam Newton. A lot. Shoot, he was the quarterback of my Fantasy Football team this year and I actually won in our league thanks to him. I’ve got no beef with the Carolina Panthers and I think it’s wonderful they’ve done so well this year. I do not begrudge them their success. Not in the slightest.

But Peyton’s my guy. He has been for years. I want to see him raise one more Lombardi trophy before he retires (which is probably going to be sooner rather than later, sadly). Cam Newton’s got plenty of time to achieve that feat and we will all get to watch him grow and progress as a player and I’m looking forward to seeing amazing things from him in the future.

Either way, it’s bound to be a great game. One great veteran quarterback who’s more than proven he’s one of the best to ever play the game, one amazingly good young quarterback who’s just getting started in his career and who is going to show us all what he’s capable of. Skin color shouldn’t even factor into the conversation. And for thousands of people who follow football, it doesn’t. But ESPN has become a cesspool of social justice liberalism and any time they can dump on the NFL for anything at all – they take that chance. It’s stupid, their viewers know it’s stupid, yet they keep doing it.