Charlemagne Tha God, real name Lenard McKelvey, is a radio personality and entertainer. We prefaced with that explanation, but he’s got more than 1.5 million followers, so you probably already know him as that funny dude who you see in your timeline. Well, Charlemagne was Bill Simmons’ guest on HBO’s Any Given Wednesday and he dropped a — to use the colloquialism in our era of war imagery as analogy for social relevance — bomb when Bill asked him about what more Steph Curry could do to help the “Black Lives Matter” movement.
You see, Steph has only sent out one tweet about the racial discord currently enveloping Charlotte (and a lot of our fractured country); although, it should also be noted Curry has expressed support for Colin Kaepernick in other media appearances, while acknowledging he’s going to stand for the National Anthem (the NBA requires it of every player).
Here’s Tha God on Steph as seen in the video above:
“I mean, Steph is gonna step up when beige lives start getting killed by the police.” That’s how he starts things out, and Simmons might annoy the hell out of you because you want the whole world to know you can write better than him, but the E-I-C of The Ringer immediately understood the power of Tha God’s opening salvo (there I go again with bad war imagery).
But Charlamagne continued to cause an on-set ruckus and made his issues with Steph as overt as possible:
“He doesn’t care about black lives, he cares about beige lives. When the ‘Beige Lives Matter’ campaign starts, Steph’s going to be right there at the forefront.”
Simmons quickly moved on because he knows that any editorializing by a white, male millionaire about the comments isn’t necessary or wanted. But Bill also brought up Colin Kaepernick’s brave decision to tackle the inequality in our criminal justice system and the deaths of young black men at the hands of the police by refusing to stand for the National Anthem before NFL football games. Yes, it’s brave, and I write that without a hint of sarcasm or irony.
That was then when Charlamagne amusingly weighed in on the back-and-forth between retired NFL QB Trent Dilfer and Kaepernick.
Around the 1:54 mark of the same video, here’s what Charlamagne says about good ol’ boy Trent:
“I’ve heard heard Trent Dilfer bring up the fact that [Kaepernick’s] a backup quarterback, and he needs to shut his mouth. Trent Dilfer shut the f*ck up. Like what does that have to do with anything?”
It doesn’t. Something Trent should keep in mind: When even Skip Bayless is calling you out for a “plantation mentality,” then you know you’re on the wrong side of history.
Charlemagne really earned “Tha God” part of his online moniker Wednesday night.
