Charles Barkley said he 'agrees' with George Zimmerman verdict

Outspoken former NBA superstar Charles Barkley said he agrees with the verdict in the murder trial of George Zimmerman, but blasted the media for giving platforms to racists to “vent” their ignorance.

Barkley, 50, gave his assessment on the high-profile Florida murder trial to CNBC on Thursday, saying jurors simply did not have enough evidence to convict the former neighborhood watch volunteer in the 2012 killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

“Well I agree with the verdict,” Barkley said. “I feel sorry that young kid got killed, but they didn’t have enough evidence to charge him. Something clearly went wrong that night — clearly something went wrong — and I feel bad for anybody who loses a kid, but if you looked at the case and you don’t make it — there was some racial profiling, no question about it — but something happened that changed the dynamic of that night.”

“I just feel bad because I don’t like when race gets out in the media ‘cuz I don’t think the media has a ‘pure heart,’ as I call it,” Barkley continued. “There are very few people who have a pure heart when it comes to race. Racism is wrong in any shape [or] form — there are a lot of black people who are racist, too. I think sometimes when people talk about race, they act like only white people are racist. There are a lot of black people who are racist. And I don’t like when it gets out there in the media because I don’t think the media has clean hands.”

“Like I said, I feel sorry that young kid got killed, but just judging by the evidence, I don’t think that guy should’ve went to jail for the rest of his life,” Barkley continued. “Mr. Zimmerman was wrong to pursue, he was racial profiling, but I think Trayvon Martin — God rest his soul — I think he did flip the switch and started beating the hell out of Mr. Zimmerman. But it was just a bad situation.”

“The main thing I feel bad for is it gives every white person and black person who’s racist a platform to vent their ignorance,” he said. “That’s the thing that bothered me the most. I watched this trail closely and I watched these people on television talking about it. A lot of these people have a hidden agenda. They want to have their racist views, whether they are white or black … Their biases definitely come out. It was a bad situation. We all lost.”