Marion Barry may have won Washington D.C.’s Council Ward 8 primary, but his political career may be about to end.
The former city mayor is backpedaling after comments he made suggesting “dirty” Asian-owned businesses in the community should be replaced instead by African-American businesses.
Video of the comments, first posted by a local television affiliates, quickly went viral. Barry soon took to Twitter to defend himself, saying his statements were taken out of context and that he merely wanted to improve the overall business community.
He also posted examples of businesses that he said “need to improve.” Many might say the real blight of the district is certain politicians’ cultural insensitivities. But Barry’s had worse offenses—at least he’s not being arrested for crack cocaine possession, like he was in 1990.
Video produced by Krishnan Vasuvedan
