Anyone who has actually taken the time to look behind the caricature knows that former DC mayor turned DC city council member
Marion Barry is a complex individual. He is neither the arrogant, race-baiting, crack-addicted fool his detractors make him out to be (
despite this), nor the civil rights hero and man of the people portrayed by his most ardent believers. Probably the best take on Mr. Barry comes from
this documentary, which tells the story of one of America's more well-known mayors with the level of nuance it deserves.
On to the good stuff though - yesterday, while doing damage control around his latest kerfuffle, Barry managed to cause another stir. The whole thing initially started when, at his victory party after winning the April Democratic primary in his Ward, Barry said the following about Asian business owners in the city:
"We got to do something about these Asians coming in and opening up
businesses and dirty shops," Barry said. "They ought to go. I'm going to
say that right now. But we need African-American businesspeople to be
able to take their places, too."
After first doubling down on his comments, and even tweeting a photo in an attempt to further his point, Barry got himself in more trouble by saying the following about Filipino nurses:
In fact, it's so bad, that if you go to the hospital now, you find a
number of immigrants who are nurses, particularly from the Philippines.
And no offense, but let's grow our own teachers, let's grow our own
nurses -- and so that we don't have to be scrounging around in our
community clinics and other kinds of places -- having to hire people
from somewhere else.
As you might imagine, neither community was particularly happy about Barry's comments, and after a protracted war of attrition between Barry and the media, in which the former mayor accused reporters of trying to "divide the city" through their scrutiny, Barry finally organized a heartfelt press conference with local Asian business leaders yesterday to apologize. In his apology, Barry tried to contextualize his latest controversy by alluding to other immigrant groups that labored to establish a foothold in America. See if you can spot the racially insensitive comment:
"America has had racial tensions from the time it was founded," Barry
said. "Italians coming here, the Irish came here, the Jews came here,
the Polacks came here, the Chinese came here."
There's no word yet on whether or not Barry plans on consulting the city's Polish community on how to handle this most recent round of fallout. Perhaps he'll tweet about it. But if the absurd irony of Barry's "bender of racial insensitivity," as Univision's
Jordan Fabian described it, has shown one thing, it's that the once high-riding (no pun intended) mayor of the nation's capital has officially lost the ability to get out of his own way. At this point, following the 76 year-old Barry is like sitting through dinner with your grandparent who still thinks it's okay to say things that aren't okay to say (a friend of mine's grandmother once described sleeveless undershirts - also known irreverently as wife beaters - as "Italian dinner jackets"). You know they can't help it. You just have to laugh, or something.
Indeed, people will laugh at Barry's latest misstep and try and fit it once again into the aforementioned caricature of mayor-turned-crack-fiend-turned-federal prisoner-turned-mayor-turned-aging city council member on his way out, but yet again, it will ultimately be Barry who is laughing all the way to his next victory party in four years, if he chooses to run again. Because while the chattering class might rightfully ridicule how seemingly absurd it is that this man still holds public office, most people fail to appreciate why exactly it is that he is able to get himself in and out of trouble so seamlessly.
In college, I had the good fortune of attending a community meeting in a Baptist church east of the Anacostia River where Barry was present. As the councilman for Ward 8, where the meeting was held, Barry was introduced before the meeting began, and the crowd stood on its feet and roared. He received rock star-level approval. I wondered - how can a guy who has screwed up so many times, raised and dashed
so many hopes, still be given a hero's welcome, time and time
again? Do they cheer like that for Jack Evans over in Ward 2? To be fair - far from every Ward 8 resident shares the same sentiments, as evidenced by the breadth, if not the depth, of Barry's opposition in this year's Democratic primary. But it's clear that if nothing else, the former mayor has a special flair for tapping into something very personal on the part of the people he has represented in some capacity for 29 out of the last 37 years. Granted, he has also betrayed the trust, time and again, of the very folks who have given him chance after chance. But if, like your eccentric friend who can't quite get it together but who you can't quite cut loose, Barry can keep winning people over, you have to at least wonder how he somehow keeps doing it.
Maybe he should quit while he's still ahead, kind of. But he won't, and won't have to, because at the end of the day, until someone else comes along that can articulate in as personal terms as Marion Barry why the former mayor has actually used the faith placed in him for his own selfish ends time and time again, while continuing to appeal for that faith on the grounds that he has been unfairly persecuted, even though he has been given every chance in the world and come up short every time, the Barry bender of con artistry will continue unabated.
Perhaps he's not such a complex individual after all.
