Charles Barkley, a former NBA star and now an NBA analyst on TNT, said after the Democratic presidential candidate debate on July 30 that political parties have been neglecting economic opportunities for black Americans. He also added that most black people he knows who have always voted Democratic are "still poor."

In 2017, Barkley remarked that Democrats have "taken the black vote and the poor vote for granted for a long time," and that "this is a wakeup call for Democrats to do better for black people and poor white people."

When Barkley was asked on July 30 whether he felt that "it's different this time around," he replied, "I do not."

"I think all politicians take black folks for granted," he told a Yahoo News reporter at the Fox Theatre in Detroit, Michigan, after the debate. "They talk to black folks every four years, and that's about it, and then do nothing about it."

"And both parties suck in that aspect, and that is not a Republican or Democratic thing, not a liberal or conservative thing. It's an economic thing. Economic opportunity. And that's what both parties' been neglecting, especially the Democratic Party," Barkley continued.

"Every black person I know has always voted Democratic, and with the exception of a few guys who can play sports, all those people are still poor," he added.