Let me take you back to that day in 1986 when the Rev. Willie Wilson of the Union Temple Baptist Church led a protest against an Asian market owner who had supposedly disrespected an African-American customer. The alleged affront involved the owner of a grocery in Ward 8 refusing to serve a customer who he suspected of stealing.
Wilson — then and now an important religious leader — urged a boycott of the store. He said that if he and his people had not forgiven the shopkeeper, “we would have cut his head off and rolled it down the street.”
Sweet guy, that Reverend Wilson. His blood-soaked outburst was met with a scolding from the establishment press and a few politicians, but Wilson’s stature in his community rose. None of that “Golden Rule” palaver for this preacher. He knew how to preach to his followers.
Remembering Willie Wilson’s threats to an Asian grocer puts Marion Barry’s comments Tuesday night into some perspective. To refresh: Barry made an offhand remark to revelers gathered to celebrate his victory at the polls, which will keep him in office as Ward 8 council member four more years. He said: “We’ve got to do something about these Asians coming in, opening up businesses, those dirty little shops. They ought to go. I’ll just say that right now, you know.”
His comments were caught on camera and recorded for posterity. There was a second quote, but we’ll deal with that a bit later.
When Barry’s crude comments hit the airwaves, there was much tsktsking. Barry’s council colleague Tommy Wells, who represents Capital Hill, called them “deplorable.” Mayor Vince Gray and Council Chairman Kwame Brown registered disapproval.
Here’s the truth: Marion Barry, like Willie Wilson before him, was showing solidarity with his constituents.
“Marion just said what a lot of people in the African-American community believe,” a native Washingtonian tells me. “We talk about it in barber shops, street corners, in our homes. Marion just said it out loud.”
That doesn’t make it right, of course. Leaders are supposed to lead people to a higher way of relating to one another. Barry’s leadership has always been one of whining and blaming and victimhood. His language in attempts to amend his remarks were laden with the failed demands for “respect” and that Asian market owners “give jobs to Ward 8 people.”
Memo to Marion: The days of “giving jobs” are over.
The second part of Barry’s pithy diatribe, after his desire to boot Koreans, is more telling: “But we need African-American businesspeople to be able to take their places, too.”
Therein lies to rub. Where are the African-American business folk clamoring to start up corner stores in Wards 7 and 8? I know of one remaining market owned by African-Americans. Suburban Market on Sheriff Road in Deanwood goes back two generations. Irving Parker’s father started it and passed it on to him; Irving’s boys are working the counter. It can be done — and well.
So I would ask Barry, who has been in D.C. politics now for close to 40 years, why he has done so little to encourage African-Americans to open stores? He’s given plenty of sweetheart deals in his days.
Instead, all he’s doing is preaching to his followers, just like his preacher, Reverend Wilson.
Harry Jaffe’s column appears on Tuesday and Friday. He can be contacted at [email protected].
