Former NBA star Charles Barkley defended NFL player Adrian Peterson after he was indicted on child-abuse charges this weekend, saying that “every black parent in the South is going to be in jail under those circumstances.”
The Minnesota Vikings running back turned himself into Texas authorities early Saturday morning after disciplining his four-year-old son with a tree branch, a beating that left wounds requiring medical attention on the child’s legs.
But despite outrage from many sports commentators, including retired quarterback “Boomer” Esiason, Barkley spoke up for Peterson during an NFL pregame show broadcast Sunday morning on CBS.
“I’m from the South,” he told Jim Rome. “I understand Boomer’s rage and anger. But we have to accept — listen, he’s a white guy, I’m a black guy. I don’t know where he’s from, I’m from the South. Whipping is — we do that all the time. Every black parent in the South is going to be in jail under those circumstances.”
“We spank kids in the South,” he continued. “I think the question about, did Adrian Peterson go overboard? But listen Jim, we all grew up in different environments.”
“Listen, I don’t want to tell anyone how to raise their kids, and I don’t really want anyone telling me how to raise my kids,” Rome countered. “But let’s make a distinction between child rearing and child abuse. That was child abuse. There’s no fine line here.”
“I think there’s a fine line,” Barkley said. “I’ve had many welts on my legs, I got beat with switches. And I don’t even like to use the term, when the media talks about it and somebody calls it on television, ‘beating a child,’ . . . We called it ’spanking’ or ‘whipping’ our kids.”
Via Mediaite.
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