Martin Austermuhle
The oversight hearing for a variety of D.C. government agencies and offices lasted five hours, and by the time it was over, Councilmember Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) seemed relieved. But his relief didn’t come because he had just relentlessly grilled city officials on how they would spend their annual budgets—he didn’t—but rather because a number of Asian American activists had used the opportunity to express their frustration over Barry’s recent comments targeting Asian business owners and Filipino nurses.
From the beginning of the hearing of the D.C. Council’s Committee on Aging and Community Affairs this morning, Barry made clear that all the controversy about his statements was the fault of the media. “The media has a way of trying to divide us,” he said early on, again bringing up the media every chance he got. At one point, he specifically accused NBC4’s Tom Sherwood of provoking the recent controversies. (Sherwood was first to report on Barry’s comments on Asian business owners in Ward 8.)
But it wasn’t just the media that was the focus of his ire during the hearing. Four representatives from Asian American groups on hand to testify on behalf of the D.C. Office of Asian Pacific Islander Affairs openly lamented Barry’s comments, only to be criticized by Barry for bringing them up.
After Rosetta Lai of the Asian American LEAD called him out for his “disenfranchising and race-baiting statements,” Barry responded by saying that she had “fallen into the trap of media distortion.” And after David Chung, the chair of the Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander Affairs, told Barry that the comments “broke my heart” and accused the mayor-for-life of making racist statements, Barry fired back, “To say what I said is a racist remark is 1,000 percent untrue. It just personally inflames the community.”
All told, Barry spent more time in the hearing criticizing the media, questioning witnesses who expressed disappointment with the statements and touting his own credentials (“Do you know of my great works?”, he asked one critic) than he did actually overseeing the agencies under his committees purview.
As the hearing took place, more criticism was leveled at Barry from on high. D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton released a statement in which she called on Barry to “cease the time dishonored pattern he seems to be adopting of targeting racial groups to call attention to issues.” According to Examiner reporter Alan Blinder, a spokesman for Mayor Vince Gray said, “There is no room in this wonderfully diverse city for comments that disparage anyone.” And in a letter, D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown chastised Barry for his comments: “Such comments, taken out of context or not, are divisive and reflect poorly on your distinguished record.” (All of this comes a day after the Philippine ambassador and 28 Asian American advocacy groups came out against Barry.)
Will all of this pressure encourage Barry to apologize? If today’s hearing was any indication, the mayor-for-life is fully ensconced in the trenches and doesn’t seem willing to surrender anytime soon.
