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DC’s Marion Barry Apologizes for Comments Against Asian Businesses
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Just two days after making disparaging remarks against Asian businesses in Washington DC’s ward eight, the ward’s councilman Marion Barry has apologized.
“I apologize to the Asian community for anything I said that was harmful, but my record is impeccable,” Barry told WUSA 9News Now. “I have fought all of my life against discrimination and I never disparage any group.”
Shorty after winning the Democratic nomination for his for re-election as Ward eight’s councilman, Barry remarked on the community’s need to re-engage and revitalize black businesses.
In his statement made on Tuesday, Barry claimed, “we’ve got to do something about these Asians coming in, opening up businesses, dirty shops. They ought to go, I’ll tell you that right now. But we need African-American business people to be able to take their place.”
His remarks immediately dismayed and outraged members of minority business associations and business owners alike.
“I was shocked and I couldn’t believe it, and I thought he misspoke,” Susan Au Allen, the president of the US Pan Asian Chamber of Commerce said to WUSA. In the past, Allen and Barry worked together on minority contracting issues in the city’s government. She acknowledged his past political achievements and said that he “was a good man” and “a hero.”
In his apology, Barry recognized that he had misspoken.
“I could have used, probably, a better choice of words to describe some merchants in Ward Eight and Ward Seven that come into our communities, sell us inferior products at high prices, sell us non-organic food, fruits and vegetables at these carry-outs, don’t hire anybody from the community, don’t participate in the community,” he said. “That’s not all of the people.”
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