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...This from Charles Barkley, the "conservative":

...Barkley grew even bolder, more in-your-face. He'd inherited leadership of the 76ers from the courtly Erving, and distanced himself from what he saw as just so much kiss-ass demeanor. He began conferring with Jesse Jackson and labeled himself a "'90s nigga -- we do what we want to do." Visits to the Philadelphia locker room were the stuff of great theater, as Barkley continued to castigate the press and a city still divided by race. "Just because you give Charles Barkley a lot of money, it doesn't mean I'm going to forget about the people in the ghettos and slums," he lectured. "Y'all don't want me talking about this stuff, but I'm going to voice my opinions. Me getting 20 rebounds ain't important. We've got people homeless on our streets and the media is crowding around my locker. It's ludicrous." He called Philly a "racist city" and told the press to "kiss my black ass -- even though your lips might stink." He vowed, "I'm a strong black man -- I don't have to be what you want me to be," echoing an Ali line from the '60s after he read Thomas Hauser's oral history of the boxing great. When I told him I was writing a magazine profile of Erving, he dismissed the legend: "Man, I ain't got no time to talk about no Uncle Tom."