Marion Barry Doubles Down on "Dirty Asians"

 

Marion Barry was D.C.'s mayor for sixteen years (1979-91 and 1995-99), and currently he's a city council member representing Ward 8, a section of D.C. that's overwhelmingly African-American.

Barry, who popularized the phrase "Bitch set me up!" during an FBI sting operation that sent him to prison, is back in the news for declaring that Asian business owners in his district should be driven out.

"We got to do something about these Asians coming in and opening up businesses and dirty shops," he said at an April 3rd campaign event. "They ought to go. I'm going to say that right now."

Reason.tv Correspondent Kennedy caught up with Barry at D.C.'s City Hall to discuss his comments.

Produced by Jim Epstein.

Approximately 2.30 minutes.

Go to Reason.tv for downloadable versions and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube Channel to receive automatic notifications when new material goes live.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Ninety-five percent of Reason reporters getting in Marion's grill are wearing Asian garb.

[Suki]

Scientific fact: Blacks are denser than Asians, or Hispanics or Whites.

[sage]

Hey Kennedy, How you doin'!

[Episiarch]

Bitch set me up!

[Heroic Mulatto]

Here's what I don't understand. Barry has an M.S. in Organic Chemistry, and was going for a Doctorate in Chemistry. Why didn't he cook up his own crack?

[Brutus]

He's a thinker, management, not a hands-on kinda guy.

[shamalam]

Whaaat? Barry has a chem degree? No way?

[Heroic Mulatto]

Yep. It's true.

[cw]

What a piece of shit. And, of course, the left lets him get away with his outright racism.

And we all know why.

[Barack]

Is it because nobody gives a rat's ass about a city councilman in Washington DC?

[GILMORE]

And, of course, the left lets him get away with his outright racism.

Hey, it's NOT RACISM when black people do it. Get with the program.

more than that, really... on the Youtube version of this vid, there were comments by liberal critics accusing this video of being a secret-conservative *racist-ly inflammatory* attack, attempting to gin up some 'false scandal' in some dastardly Koch-funded subterfuge attempts to undermine democratic solidarity amongst the races.

No. Fucking. Shit. They were totally skipping past anything Barry *actually said*, and complaining that this *video* was in fact the 'racist attack'. i.e. "Drawing attention to the issue"= 'creating it'.

There are sometime moments when i can not tell whether certain types of progressive liberal types are being either Disingenous - where their rhetoric is simply calculated to derail the discussion, flip the argument on its head and make the other person clearly 'the enemy' - , or whether they *actually believe* their own line of bullshit, and are really just that fucking Stupid/Crazy/Deluded. Its a toss up!

[Hyperion]

The progressives are completely fucking insane. Hope that helps solve the riddle for you of why they seem to be so completely fucking insane.

[Mad Scientist]

Oh, that's easy. Tony, for example, actually believes his own bullshit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you, 50 character word limit!

[Anonymous Coward]

We got to do something about these Negroes coming in and opening up businesses and dirty shops,

[Anonymous Coward]

T h e y

[Paul.]

When you cut and paste, remove and retype any cut-and-pasted apostrophes and quotation marks.

I cut from Reason's own site and found the pasted apostrophes were a different character set, a more slanted type than the standard vertical one that you see in the text box. There was one (1) of those apostrophes in my quote, I retype it... voila, 50 char bullshit gone.

[Heroic Mulatto]

By "cultural differences," Barry surely means that Asians value educational achievement, hard work, and entrepreneurship; whereas decades of his party's "War on Poverty" has led to an African-American culture that disdains educational achievement (acting White) and hard work and entrepreneurship (being a sucka for playing the Man's game).

[Enjoy Every Sandwich]

whereas decades of his party's "War on Poverty" has led to an African-American culture that disdains educational achievement (acting White) and hard work and entrepreneurship (being a sucka for playing the Man's game)

Perhaps my problem is that I'm so white I'm practically a ghost, but this is the thing that I've never been able to understand about the African-American community. The approach of Barry and like-minded folk simply hasn't worked. Why don't the people see that? It's a perspective I can't wrap my mind around.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Acculturation is very powerful. Add to that a state-run educational system that will do its best to make sure they read W.E.B. DuBois, Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison, but never even hear of Zora Neale Hurston.

That is when you can convince folks to read a muthafuckin' book in the first place.

[sticks]

but never even hear of Zora Neale Hurston.

She was required reading in the public HS I attended. Shrug.

[Heroic Mulatto]

She was required reading in the public HS I attended.

Excellent.

[A Serious Man]

Yeah I read There Eyes Were Watching God as a sophmore. Great book, depicting a black woman making her way in life in spite of cultural and racial pressures.

[thirtyandseven]

I hadn't heard of her. Thanks for the links, they were very enlightening.

[Heroic Mulatto]

She also fought zombies.

True story.

[DA]

We were also required to read it. Now I wish I had paid more attention to it and I feel the urge to give it another shot.

[Evil Otto]

You don't even have to go as far as Hurston. Booker T Washington is painted as a borderline collaborator with white segregationists because he valued blacks being allowed to own businesses and get a practical education more than being allowed to check a box on a piece of paper every two years.

[Groovus Maximus]

^^^THIS!^^^

[Brutus]

There's just too much power wrapped up in the status quo, EES. If any group stops seeing a certain band of politicians and the bureaucrats they ride herd on as perpetual saviors, then that group loses power. So they're kept in a perverse bondage, poor enough to be manipulated, but never as poor as they could be, a state that is then used to menace them should their political protectors be disempowered.

[sage]

I've been watching America: The Story of Us on Netflix. It's interesting and I am learning little factoids here and there, but one thing has really been interesting. Almost all of the people that are interviewed are talking about how the thing that made us as a country was that risk-taking spirit. A spirit that has largely been taken away. So can we reinvent ourselves? Or will we continue to see if we can hit Peak Retard?

[Apatheist ?_??]

I watched parts of that, it seemed to me to be the usual History Channel drivel.

[sage]

I like the effects and their 3D map showing migration patterns and such. I know they're leaving a lot of stuff out though. How can you cover 250 years of history in 13 episodes?

I'm sure they could only cover so much so they had to answer to a committee for what they would cover.

[Suki]

Not enough Hitler for History Channel.

[RFID]

Not enough Hitler Aliens for History Channel.

Fixed. Although, no one has conclusively proven that Hitler wasn't an Alien. How did the Wehrmacht become so powerful in such a short amount of time? Is is possible that he was assisted....by Aliens?

[robc]

Ive seen that episode on the History channel.

Seriously.

[robc]

The upper level Nazis who were never found escaped via time machine.

[Anacreon]

And on South Park.

[Brian from Texas]

Typical liberal double-standard. If a white Republican made a similar comment about Muslim business owners he'd be rightly condemned for the bigot he is. But since Barry's a black Democrat the liberals totally look the other way even though his comments are no less horrific.

[Mr. FIFY]

You'll make Tony cry with talk like that, Brian.

By all means... continue.

[Evil Otto]

"Don't confuse silence with approval" is the current line he's using.

[Mr. FIFY]

Sounds like a Tonyism...

[R C Dean]

Candidate for new Iron Law:

What you permit, you promote.

[John C. Randolph]

Well, he is being condemned, just not by any of the leftards.

-jcr

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm very sorry for offending the Asian-American community. Although taken out of context by many about the conditions of some Ward 8 carryouts, the comment was meant to convey that some stores need better service to and engagement with the community than what is provided now. To improve food places in Ward 8, owners have to move beyond status quo. Take down the plexiglass, offer healthy food, keep [business] clean and inviting. And anyone NOT from Ward 8, you may want to actually EXPERIENCE the difference of what IS and what CAN BE here in [Southeast]. I admit, I could and should have said it differently. But the facts are still very present in our daily lives here.We are tired of sub-standard treatment, tired of being kept an arms length distance, tired of the lack of community engagement. As stated before, our neighborhoods have made remarkable improvement over the last 7 years. Our retail needs to catch up. It costs nothing to keep the store clean. Nothing to add healthy items. Nothing to know your patrons. Nothing to have the will to do better. I do hope that as much attention focused on my admittedly bad choice of words will be given to the very real and present retail needs of [Southeast].

How about you just not buy from them, Marion?

[Heroic Mulatto]

I'm very sorry for offending the Asian-American community.

No, you're not.

Although taken out of context by many about the conditions of some Ward 8 carryouts,

No, it wasn't.

the comment was meant to convey that some stores need better service to and engagement with the community than what is provided now. To improve food places in Ward 8, owners have to move beyond status quo.

Absolutely, but they don't need a bureaucrat or a politician to tell them that when market forces will do just fine.

Take down the plexiglass,

They will when something is done about D.C.'s horrendous rate of violent crime.

offer healthy food

Bean sprouts and tofu are already healthier than wings with hot sauce. Jus' sayin'.

keep [business] clean and inviting.

Again, let the customers decide if it's clean and inviting. If not, they don't have to get food there.

[Heroic Mulatto]

And anyone NOT from Ward 8, you may want to actually EXPERIENCE the difference of what IS and what CAN BE here in [Southeast].

That doesn't even mean anything.

I admit, I could and should have said it differently.

We agree.

But the facts are still very present in our daily lives here.We are tired of sub-standard treatment, tired of being kept an arms length distance, tired of the lack of community engagement.

That goes both ways.

As stated before, our neighborhoods have made remarkable improvement over the last 7 years. Our retail needs to catch up.

Nothing is stopping your "community" from developing their own entrepreneurs. I'm sure they can find storefronts for their own businesses without Kristallnacht 2012.

It costs nothing to keep the store clean.

Janitors work for free?

Nothing to add healthy items.

Food is free?

Nothing to know your patrons. Nothing to have the will to do better.

The first sensible thing you have ever said in your life.

[Heroic Mulatto]

I do hope that as much attention focused on my admittedly bad choice of words will be given to the very real and present retail needs of [Southeast].

It will, in that you will be voted out and someone who actually understands how to encourage entrepreneurship will be elected.

[Mr. FIFY]

Great analysis, HM, but you left out "it's okay when Team Blue says stupid bigoted shit and fuck you, that's why" as part of Barry's mindset.

[Brutus]

Barry can say, in effect, "fuck you" because he is truly a representative member of his ward. It's not like he's saying something that isn't said openly in W8.

[Mr. FIFY]

Same goes for the other Barry... the one in the White House. But he has a bigger "fuck you" than Marion Barry.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

"It costs nothing to keep the store clean. Nothing to add healthy items. Nothing to know your patrons. Nothing to have the will to do better."

Does he actually believe these items are costless? What a moron.

[wareagle]

take his illogic a step further:
--why do the stores need constant cleaning? Could it be that patrons either make a mess or do not demand an orderly environment.
--adding healthy items. Do customers want them? If not, not much point in stocking shelves with stuff no one will buy.
--and what stops patrons from getting to know the shop owner, or from opening competing shops?

[Bill Dalasio]

You know, every time my wife and I have moved, we've made it a point to get to know some of the local shop owners. By and large, they're incredibly receptive, as you'd expect, to striking up a conversation and an acquaintance. For the cost of showing a little goodwill and exchanging a few pleasantries, I've found I've gotten significantly better service, lots of information from the shopkeepers and sometimes even breaks on prices. This seems to apply across ethnic groups. Somehow, I suspect the same conditions prevail in Mr. Barry's district.

[Apatheist ?_??]

You know who else drove out the Asian shopkeepers?

[sage]

Rioters in L.A.?

[Mr. FIFY]

Rev. Al Sharpton?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hitler?

[Anacreon]

Buicks?

[Paul.]

FDR?

[Heroic Mulatto]

Idi Amin, the Original Gangsta, of course.

[Apatheist ?_??]

The correct answer is Suharto.

[Hugh Akston]

Truman?

[Hugh Akston]

No, wait! Roosevelt. The answer is Roosevelt.

[Suki]

Both of them!

[Rich]

Jesus?

[Apatheist ?_??]

+1

[VG Zaytsev]

You know who else drove out the Asian shopkeepers?

Franky Roosevelet

[Mr. FIFY]

OT, but brilliant:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....98993.html

[Mr. FIFY]

Hey, wow! It let me post a link without spitting it out! Maybe this thing is fixed now.

[sage]

Warren Buffett gets all the food he wants...so why can't we?
Warren Buffett gets all the houses he wants...so why can't we?
Warren Buffett gets all the cell phones he wants...so why can't we?
Warren Buffett gets all the cars he wants...so why can't we?
Warren Buffett gets all the clothes he wants...so why can't we?
Warren Buffett gets all the bicycles he wants...so why can't we?
Warren Buffett gets all the computers he wants...so why can't we?
Warren Buffett gets all the TV's he wants...so why can't we?
Warren Buffett gets all the books he wants...so why can't we?
Warren Buffett gets all the tools he wants...so why can't we?
Warren Buffett gets all the airplanes he wants...so why can't we?

Do you think he gets to eat all the COOKIES he wants too? Lucky fucking bastard!

[ant1sthenes]

You know, if the lefty shit-stirrers and the neo-nazis ever do succeed in provoking a race war, I'm pretty sure it's going to be black people vs. everyone else.

[Mr. FIFY]

It's "when", not "if". Just as it's a matter of "when" Team Blue finally gets The Downtrodden to gang up and start setting fire to mansions and Ferraris.

The Occutard movement was just a warm-up. The left will, eventually, cause massive riots in this country.

/preemptive "fuck you, shrike and Tony"

[Evil Otto]

It's "when", not "if".

Everything that could possibly happen is a matter of when not if, per the Infinite Monkey Theorem.

The question is how long you have to wait, and all those survivalist YouTube videos from 2006 urging viewers to stockpile food and ammo for the imminent TEOTWAWKI suggest that a lot of people jump the gun on such predictions.

[ant1sthenes]

"The left will, eventually, cause massive riots in this country."

Riots, sure. But the Occupy movement was a class thing (a non-worker's movement, as it were), not a race thing.

It's the racial angle that's been bothering me -- recently there's been a story about a white hispanic shooting a black teen, a Native American literally hunting blacks, and now this dumbass reminding us of the animosity between blacks and asians. I can see why neo-nazis would be happy about that. But I can't see why someone like Sharpton would wants things to actually get ugly (scaring the black community into rallying around its leaders, sure, but anything further could be a potential disaster).

[Evil Otto]

Al Sharpton has made a very good living in terms of both fame and fortune from stirring outrage in the black community. Assuming that's all he cares about (a very reasonable assumption) there's no reason for him to stop now.

And I'm sure he has a golden helicopter waiting for him in case things get really chaotic.

[Groovus Maximus]

Al Sharpton has made a very good living in terms of both fame and fortune from stirring outrage in the black community.

As has Jesse Jackson. He's been skulking around OK ginning up support for "economic justice", gun control and stirring up general racial animosity. The leaders around here have been showering his path with rose petals and walking on eggshells to placate him. And it's still not enough.

Take that Native American shooter case in OK (BTW there were two shooters.) The shooters were caught withing 24 hrs of the last shooting (on Easter Sunday. BTW, two of the shooting victims survived and were released from the hospital within 48 hrs.) There was pressure to charge them with "Teh Hate Crime". One and done. Still bitching. They were each given $9 million bail, a record level for the city of Tulsa. There were demonstrations of outrage that bail was offered at all. What more do you want, go directly to jail with no trial by jury? These perps are never going to see the outside of a prison cell, and nor should they. Seems to me it's more important the racial demography of the victim than the actual crime. And that is sickening.

I am coming around to the conclusion that what Jackson wants is to take every penny from every non-black member of society and drop a big reparations money ball on the Black Community.

[wareagle]

But I can't see why someone like Sharpton would wants things to actually get ugly

because Sharpton counts on whites to be cowed into submission, into turning over the palace keys or whatever, mostly because no one has ever looked that race hustler in the eye and told him to fuck off, that he is the problem, a human leech who feeds on racial animosity.

Sharpton's place in society depends on things being bad. In many respects, he is the anti-King, judging people solely by the color of their skin.

[Mr. FIFY]

Oh, blacks may well be dragged into the overall Us Versus The Evil Rich White Male Mass Riot and Subsequent Police State Shithammering... it's not like they haven't been programmed with all kinds of wealth-envy trigger words over the decades.

/expecting Tony to cry "racism" where there is none, as per usual

[AlmightyJB]

I don't see it happening. Even though the media loves to make these lefty protest out to be mass movements their fairly limited. They'd be lucky to get 1000 people together. They would all be white college suburbinites who have no idea how to use a weapon and will piss themselves if looking down the barrel of one.

[Mr. FIFY]

It doesn't have to be limited to just a gaggle of hipster rich kids... if the "we hate rich people" movement gains more momentum, there are plenty of poor people who can be whipped into a frenzy.

In fact, Team Blue is counting on it.
They're not going to go mainstream with their real plans, y'know... oh, some of the farthest-leftards will make war sounds, but if things keep getting fucked-er, we may have a repeat of Russia circa 1917.

[AlmightyJB]

I agree that they are counting on that but I think they overestimate their influence. It's one thing to get people to parrot your idiotic propaganda, its quite another to get them to leave the comfort of their homes and fight a revolution for rich white elitist assholes.

[Barack]

SOOO???
There's nothing wrong with black people disliking the rest of you.
We have our own beauty pageants, scholarships, award shows, etc. It's OKAY!
It's just when it's reversed it's called racism.
Duh.

[Evil Otto]

Very dark-skinned women are at a huge disadvantage in beauty contests because one of the main evolutionary purposes of "beauty" is to select against diseased potential sperm repositories. Naturally dark skin makes it harder to tell whether jaundice and other skin-discoloring diseases are present.

[Barack]

Good to have you on Team Black, Evil Otto.

[A Serious Man]

Typical race-baiting urban Democrat, demonize another minority group for being successful because it makes your own group look bad.

You know Barry, many of these Asian immigrants came to this country with literally nothing, faced just as much, if not more, hostility and racism as your group did, and yet still have managed to become very successful. How? Oh yeah, they actually value hard work and entreprenuerialship rather than impotently bitch about how the "system" is unfair and against them.

[Killazontherun]

The Republicans like to say there has been no racial progress under Obama. At the very least, you can expect far, far fewer jokes about eating dog on BET.

[Ice Nine]

Far be it from me to defend Marion Barry, who I think is largely a buffoon (though he wasn't always) but I don't see what is racist about what he said. He represents a district that is almost 100% Black and it is full of shops owned almost 100% by Asians. You know why and I know why but that doesn't change those facts. He wants the Asian ownership of businesses in his district to be replaced by Black ownership. You know why that won't happen and I know why that won't happen but his unrealistic wish is legitimate. He is a Black man representing Black people and he wants better things for them. So he expressed that desire. What was he supposed to have said, "I want Black owners to replace 'A-word' owners"?

The mere mention of a particular racial group, especially in factual context, by someone of another racial group does not constitute racism. We decry that all the time when that crappy rap is laid on Whites. Guess what, it works for Blacks too.

And maybe the shops are dirty.

[Ice Nine]

Oh and BTW, Epstein and Kennedy, he didn't say, "Dirty Asians".

[Killazontherun]

Pardon me, but that is bullocks on a Wheat Thin. Barry doesn't represent blacks, he represents a particular unit of geography and the people that live within it. He doesn't get to choose who his neighbors are any more than I can tell the little old black lady who owns the lot on the corner of the street to 'get the Hell out of here, nigger', or my more whitish neighbors can tell me 'get the hell out of here, spic.' Nobody gets to be that fucking parochial and his word to be law.

[Ice Nine]

I didn't remotely suggest that he does get to choose. You're barking up a tree.

[Killazontherun]

In other words, you are completely and in total confusing private matter with public policy. He doesn't want to sell lots he owns to Asians, fine. However, being a councilman doesn't make him King who can decide who gets to stay in his kingdom. That is the most consequential difference between a classical liberal public order and feudal/socialist ones. He suggest that he has the right to impose the latter which, yes, if you believe in liberty, you will fight tooth and nail instead of acquiescing to or supporting it as you do in your statement above.

[Ice Nine]

I didn't remotely suggest that being a councilman makes him King who can decide who gets to stay in his kingdom. You're still barking. You ought to stick with what I actually said. It had nothing to do with what he gets to do. It purely and simply refuted the notion of what he said being racist.

[Killazontherun]

He is appealing to the baser sentiments of the part of his constituency that he curries favor, and telling them that another part of his constituency is the problem and suggest he is going to address that problem, and THAT is not racism? Fuck me.

[Killazontherun]

No I am not barking up the wrong tree.

You stated:

You know why that won't happen and I know why that won't happen but his unrealistic wish is legitimate.

For his statement to be legitimate it also has to be a rational statement of possibilities. He will use his influence in that legislative body as a cudgel to make life difficult for Asians.

You express above that that is okay with you when you take his side.

[Ice Nine]

For his statement to be legitimate it also has to be a rational statement of possibilities.

No it doesn't. And I didn't say "statement", I said "wish". And I must guess that most wishes are irrational and many don't pertain to real possibilities, though he clearly thinks what he wants is possible.

Oh, and stop putting words in my mouth; it is getting tedious.

[Killazontherun]

I'm not putting words in your mouth. The operative word here that you use, that floored me, is 'legitimate.' For it (wish, statement, a statement of wishes, etc.) to be legitimate it also has to be rational. That is the axiom I'm going with, though if you can find something that is both 'legitimate' and 'irrational' I'll be open to suggestions though the Barry statements do not pass that muster.

[Ice Nine]

All wishes are legitimate.

You're determined to argue with your constructs and not with what I said, so, ciao.

[The Fatman]

Gotta agree with Killa. You're excusing the man that wants to force out one group and replace it with another. Are not the Asians that own those shops also his contituents? Do they not have the right to live and work where they please? Fuck off Slaver.

[PM]

If wanting to remove business owners from the district you represent based upon their race, and replace them with different business owners also based on their race, isn't racism, then there really is no such thing as racism. I suppose George Wallace's wish to not have to share public drinking fountains and buses with niggers was "legitimate" as well.

[ThemAPPLEs]

"If wanting to remove business owners from the district you represent based upon their race, and replace them with different business owners also based on their race"

In the balkins it was called "ethnic clensing" I think.

[Evil Otto]

Carrying your statements to their logical conclusion is not "putting words in your mouth". If anything's getting tedious, it's your self-righteous offense-taking to anyone who dares question your claims.

[A Serious Man]

Um, what's stopping blacks from opening up their own business? You'd think if there was a demand for a black business it would be easy for a black entrepreneur to open up a business.

But people like Barry have been demonizing capitalists for years, decrying blacks who engage in it as "sell-outs". This is nothing more than another example of the culture of victimhood that hampers growth, only this time they are scapegoating another minority for having the audacity to be successful.

[Ice Nine]

The answers to your question are myriad, most having to do with their own doing. I only hinted at it and chose not to get detailed because that is a whole other discussion.

[Evil Otto]

Surely you could give a brief summary, or discuss one significant reason randomly selected from the myriad.

Well, unless you're trying to dodge the question.

[Anacreon]

When you go into big-city underclass neighborhoods' little corner stores, you will almost always see the same man, the owner, behind the register. Often in the afternoons his kids might be sitting in the store doing their homework (you see this a lot in the little storefront restaurants as well). About the only time you don't see the man at the register his wife is back there. They might have one employee who is there on Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings, and maybe unloading stock some other times. Given the location and everything they are up against, about the only way they can be profitable is for the owner to put in 80-100 hours a week at the store. It holds true regardless of race.

New immigrants tend to be willing to make that sacrifice. Most other people in this country aren't.

[John C. Randolph]

>Um, what's stopping blacks from opening up their own business?

And be ridiculed like George Jefferson?

-jcr

[neoteny]

He wants the Asian ownership of businesses in his district to be replaced by Black ownership.

You know who wanted Jewish ownership of businesses in his country to be replaced by German ownership?

[Barack]

Mel Gibson?

[R]

OWS?

[Anacreon]

Yasser Arafat?

[Barack]

Michael Richards?

[Evil Otto]

So if a white politician with a 99% white constituency complains about black people opening businesses in his district, and suggests they should be replaced by white owners, that would be OK?

[Brutus]

And how long would such a politician remain in office. Please express your answers in milliseconds.

[Barack]

No.
How many times do I have to say this?
When white people say it, it's discrimination.
Plus, white people can't have white job fairs, white award shows, white scholarships, or show preference to their race in any way.
It's okay for black people to do it, and say whatever they want because we need to get ahead.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

The zero-sum nature of the statement is awful.

For blacks to succeed, Asians have to go.

That's what's offensive about the statement.

[wareagle]

that is pretty much what offensive about liberalism. Everything is zero sum to the left. No one can get ahead without someone else first being dragged back.

[Xenocles]

"He wants the Asian ownership of businesses in his district to be replaced by Black ownership."

He prefers one race over another. This is racism almost by definition. In my eyes, and I imagine the eyes of most of the posters here, racism is categorically wrong. Therefore his wish is not "legitimate."

[Lyle]

There is a black woman who owns a dry cleaning business a block or so from me. I want her out of my neighborhood because she's black and lives a different culture from me. Am I racist?

[wareagle]

yes, unless you are black in which case, you are not the problem, she is. For acting white. Or Asian since it's a cleaning business. Wait. Is that racist?

[Mr. FIFY]

Remember when all the cleaning businesses were owned by JOOOOOS?

/lol

[Lyle]

Man, I knew I was racist. Feels good to just say it out loud.

[Mr. FIFY]

Of course you're racist, Lyle... you're not a Democrat.

/libsnark

[Nando]

Where's the Earth Day thread, reason?

[Mr. FIFY]

Because Fuck Earth Day, that's why.

[Edgar]

Good for Marion. Its better for him to let it all hang out than it is to hide his true feelings. I'm fairly sure most Asians reciprocate the feelings and are not in the least hurt by his comments. What is most funny is his interviewer "wanting to like him." Huh? There are plenty of other reasons to dislike Barry. Most white people really want blacks to like them and just can't face the reality that a good percentage of blacks will never like whites and probably even actually hate them. So what? Get used to it. All your righteousness aint gonna change a thing.

[A Serious Man]

I just hope the Heller decision is being enforced in DC and these business oweners are armed, because this kind of demagoguery will lead to violence if it contiunes.

[AlmightyJB]

"Dirty" Asians are my favorite kind.

[David_TheMan]

Oh, I love it. Marion Barry isn't a racist, he is a representative for all the blacks.

This is rich coming from a supposedly libertarian leaning commentariat.

[Mad Scientist]

Funny, I didn't hear the libertarian leaning commentariat say that. But you go ahead and believe what you've made up your mind to believe.

[Ice Nine]

You are correct - you heard no one here say Marion Barry isn't a racist.

[neoteny]

So Barry is a racist, but when he says that Asian store owners in Black neighborhoods "oughta go", that isn't racist.

[Ice Nine]

I don't know; is he a racist?

If you've decided that he is (and I would be inclined to guess that you would be right), then is everything a racist says, racist?

[neoteny]

Not necessarily everything; but some can be, especially when race is used to identify who should be allowed to have businesses where, and who shouldn't.

[Barack]

Did someone say that?

[Mr. FIFY]

Hey, everyone! We have another Team Blue contestant in our midst! Let's give him the same warmth and love we give to shrike and Tony...

[R]

[citation needed]

[Harvard]

Hard to read Asians. They don't expose a lot of eye.
Unless they're aiming, like that L.A. Korean shop keeper with the 1911 .45 ACP.
Wasn't hard to read him.
A poster of that guy would have sold millions.

[Meat Tornado]

Finally! An interview subject Kennedy can appear smarter than.

[Barack]

Where?

[Xenocles]

Ooh! Here's another!

[Amakudari]

+100

[Stephdumas]

Does Marion Berry is a long lost distant cousin of the former mayor of Detroit, Coleman A. Young?

[Hyperion]

Maybe one day ol Marion will be walking home from his favorite watering hole and being very inebriated will make a wrong turn and wind up in Chinatown. Then suddenly a roaming group of Asian youths recognize him and pull out a serious kung-fu on his ass. Even better, it could be like that movie big trouble in little china, and some badass chinese warlock dude could ascend from the sky and kick the shit out of him. Now there would be some real entertainment.

[Hyperion]

Come on Reason, when are you going to get an edit feature? It's freaking embarrassing when you type ascend and actually meant descend and now can't change it. Even that liberal douche rag Politico has an edit feature. And the average IQ of th posters over there would rule out most of them ever figuring out how to use it.

[SusanM]

I'm sure there was one scene where one of the furies ascends from something. You're on safe ground.

[Hyperion]

Thanks for your kindess Susan, but things do not typically ascend from the sky when you are a drunken arsehole Marion Barry lost in the Chinatown..., or maybe they do... (:

[SusanM]

Commenting does not mix well with Kahlua. I'm sorry 😉

[Heroic Mulatto]

Black guy, and I mean Wesley Snipes (who has absolutely no problem with Asians, btw) Black, speaks truth to power.

[neoteny]

Yup, he certainly said the right thing.

[Hyperion]

One thing that batshit crazy Barry could do; after he has ran all the dirty Asians out of town, that is... He could import a few dozen chicken joints in from Baltimore.

God knows Baltimore could lose a few hundred of them and no one would notice.

I wonder which ones he would prefer to the dirty Asian joints, would it be chicken and biscuits, chicken and crabs, chicken and trout, chicken and fucking chicken, or chicken and something fucking else? Or all of the above. Then he could have his dream neighborhood. Of course that neighborhood will now be one that no tourist would ever venture into even during daylight hours. But I think that is what he wants.

[Sevo]

Chicken and spam, spam, spam spam......

[neoteny]

Chicken & pink slime.

Actually, that's for schools, especially when the chicken is "formed".

[lhw]

http://www.cheap-uniform.com/ Ten boys ,one is good.here is clean shops.

[Hyperion]

The Libertarian squirrels will now fuck you up, spammer!

[neoteny]

They already fucked themselves up with a domain name like "cheap-uniform".

[John C. Randolph]

That's where the TSA gets their clown suits, isn't it?

-jcr

[JeremyR]

You really should get Martha Quinn.

[Bruce Majors]

If God had meant for us to eat cats like those dirty, smelly, slant eyed little Chinks do, he wouldn't have given us dogs.

[Kaptious Kristen]

I remember when Barry was running for Ward 8 council, and the local news interviewed some schmoe on Anacostia's main drag. They guy was saying how much Marion Barry had done for their community and what a hero he was and how he revitalized the neighborhood.

In the background were boarded-up businesses and tumble weeds blowing down the street.

Never underestimate the power of cognitive dissonance.

[Loki]

Marion Barry doubles down on dirty asians stupid.

What a fucktard.

[ChrisO]

I guarantee you that Marion Barry will benefit greatly from this, whatever the outcome for his constituents.

Non-DC folks here should also know that quality grocery shopping is available within a mile or two of even the worst parts of Barry's council district--just over the line in Prince George's County, Maryland.

The cruddy liquor stores and take-out joints are there in Ward 8 because that's what people there actually buy. I have no problem with that--let the market decide.