Charles Barkley is always a breath of fresh air, because whether he’s right or wrong, he’s always willing to speak his mind and call it how he sees it.

Case in point, from Saturday night, during the Final Four broadcast:

The context here is that they ran a pregame feature about Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 appearance in Indy, where he told a crowd that MLK had been killed. That’s how the broadcast got on the topic of race.

Barkley:

“Man I think most white people and Black people are great people. I really believe that in my heart. But I think our system is set up where our politicians, whether they are Republicans or Democrats, are designed to make us not like each other so they can keep their grasp of money and power. They divide and conquer. I truly believe in my heart most white people and black people are awesome people, but we’re so stupid following our politicians, whether they are Republicans or Democrats. And their only job is, ‘Hey, let’s make these people not like each other. We don’t live in their neighborhoods. We all got money. Let’s make the whites and Blacks not like each other. Let’s make rich people and poor people not like each other. Let’s scramble the middle class.’ I truly believe that in my heart.”

Like most things Charles say, there’s a lack of nuance, and he gets a little bit into the conspiracy theory weeds here, but the overarching thought isn’t wrong:

“I truly believe in my heart most white people and black people are awesome people.”

Fact check – true!

There are more than 300 million people living in this country. The vast, overwhelming majority are decent, law-abiding, tax-paying citizens who are friendly and engaging and will help a neighbor, hold the door open at Wawa, or whatever. You don’t hear about that though because it’s expected, right? That’s not news. We instead fill the 11 p.m. rundown with shootings and stabbings and fires and car crashes, because “if it bleeds, it reads.” That’s the old journalism cliche.

And then when one person out of those 300,000,000 goes and commits an atrocity, it’s somehow a referendum on the entire country, which, while concerning and in need of attention (the atrocity), misrepresents entire groups of people based on race, class, or religion. Just look at the recent attack on the Asian woman in New York and how various outlets on both sides of the spectrum tried to spin the news to fit a pre-conceived narrative.

More specific to politicians, Chuck isn’t wrong. It’s fucking blah blah “Republicans this, Democrats that,” over and over again. It’s been that way for decades. We’re talking about career politicians who have zero interest in anything other than winning re-election. And we just go along for the ride and vote for the “lesser of two evils” every four years, which bounces us from left to right, right to left, over and over again, while failing to move this country forward in any kind of common sense, bi-partisan type of way.

But I digress.

The point is this:

Good on Charles for using his platform to speak his mind, and deliver opinions that have not been previously approved for the masses or sanitized by TV producers. He’s not always right, but plenty of times he’s spoken for the overwhelming majority of sane people living in this country, and shown a willingness to call bullshit where necessary.