The man appears to have series issues with Asian people. There's just too much of a trend of nasty anti-Asian comments. And he's a city council member of a minority-majority city.
At a hearing Monday on the University of the District of Columbia’s budget, he spoke about the need to train more African Americans to become nurses. In a video of his remarks aired by WTTG-TV, Barry noted a growing number of nurses are “immigrants” from the Philippines.“[I]f you go to the hospital now, you’ll find a number of immigrants who are nurses, particularly from the Philippines,” said Barry (D-Ward 8). “And no offense, but let’s grow our own teachers, let’s grow our own nurses, and so that we don’t have to go scrounging in our community clinics and other kinds of places, having to hire people from somewhere else.”The National Federation of Filipino American Associations called Barry’s remarks “racist” and “bigoted.”HuffPost puts the comments in the larger context of Barry's other nasty quips about Asians.
“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.”Why write about this idiot? Because there's a larger history of bad relations between the black and Asian communities in this country, and the notion of Asian businesses somehow carpetbagging their way into black neighorhoods. That's what's likely influencing Barry's comments, and he's only feeding the racism, and mutual dislike and distrust, between the communities by speaking like this, repeatedly.The man really is an idiot. I was asked by a Swedish friend last night how idiot conservatives were elected to parliament in his country. I told him that it happened in politics wordlwide. Marion Barry is a great, local, example.
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