Refusing to leave well enough alone, crazypants former D.C. mayor and current City Council member Marion Barry declares just because the D.C. Council approved the recognition of out-of-state same-sex marriages, the fight isn’t over: “All hell is going to break lose. We may have a civil war. The black community is just adamant against this. … What you’ve got to understand is 98 percent of my constituents are black and we don’t have but a handful of openly gay residents. Secondly, at least 70 percent of those who express themselves to me about this are opposed to anything dealing with this issue. The ministers think it is a sin, and I have to be sensitive to that.”
His comments came after a group of anti-gay ministers stormed the council building and “caused such a ruckus that security guards and police had to clear the hallway. The protesters shouted that council members who voted for the bill will face retribution at the polls.”
dgz
speak for yourself, ex-Mayor Crackhead.
p.s. DC is one of the gayest cities in the world, so you clearly don’t know your constituents all that well.
HayYall
Is he staring at a crack pipe in that pic?
BradK
What you’ve got to understand is 98 percent of my constituents are black and…at least 70 percent of those who express themselves to me about this are opposed to anything dealing with this issue.
Pretty much the same percentages as CA and FL in November. So much for the exit polling being way off.
Anyone know, does Cracky represent the entire district (at large) or a specific region (as in NOT DuPont Circle)?
Chitown Kev
I am not sure where ward 8 or ward 9 is but this crackhead DOES not speak for DC, and he may only speak for the members of his ward. And I even doubt that.
Marion Barry is a crack smoking lying ass hypocrite and whatever happened to the keys of that car that that queen stole from you back in the day, Marion.
kevin (not that one)
Yes, and 98% of his constituents have no prospects of bringing themselves out of poverty, suffer high rates of heart disease and preventable illnesses (diabetes, obesity), have a shamefully low education, have too many unmarried, single-parent homes where the father is absent or in prison, and are in the middle of an urban drug epidemic.
Priorities, anyone?
Fucking crack-smoking, adulterous, trick.
dgz
@BradK:
oh stop. it’s not like the guy actually conducted a poll. counting isn’t exactly in this dude’s wheelhouse.
anon
ah, dupont circle…how I love that area of DC. great bars, great restaurants…
BradK
@Chitown Kev: LOLZ!
@dgz: Perhaps not, but that magic 70% figure seems to just keep popping up. Coincidence?
Dennis
Oh, crazie crackie, you are a gift that keeps on giving… were you actually sober at any of your 4 “sacred” marriage ceremonies? Does your crack adled-brain even understand what the term hypocracy means? Or that you are a national joke, and do nothing but make US and our cause look good?
As an aside, my own mother was one of the “seperate but equal” supporters in that she (previously) supported civil unions, but not marriage rights…all the bat-shit crazy freaks like crack-Barry here (and others) have pushed her over the edge to our side…and I have to believe have pushed MANY others to our side as well…keep it up, luv ya crazies!
Chitown Kev
@dgz:
sheeit, I bet he counted the number of rocks he stuffed in that glass dick of his before he said this crazy shit.
Nick
Hmmm…downlow anyone?
dvlaries
Marion Barry and Ann Coulter should go out to dinner together sometime. I’m just realizing how both faithfully personify continuous proof that American TV audiences never tire of clowns.
Chitown Kev
@dvlaries:
Look Barry is enough of a ho and a skank that somebody gave him a BJ in the visitor’s room in the motherfucking prison.
You think he gives a rat’s ass about whether a man or a woman sucks him off?
Rob
A majority of the population of DC is African-American. I don’t think a same-sex marriage bill would have gotten through the DC Council by a 12-1 vote if 70% of the Districts’ black residents were opposed to it.
Buffy
Ironic that a crackhead, four-times divorced, tax-evading SOB would have the audacity to be declaring anybody else a “sinner”.
Gurlene
@Chitown Kev: Hey Kev. If you remember where Batchelors Mill was picture walking out the door and turning left. Ward 8 is directly east of there across the river.
Next to nothing has changed over their either. I don’t think I need to go into why since you did live there once yourself.
Chitown Kev
@Gurlene:
I hardly lived over there. I lived in NW DC, around 13th and Q (walking distance to DuPont but still what I would call a true “black gay community”). I also lived walking distance to the Brass Rail both when it was on 13th St. and when it was on 5th st. And Nob Hill wasn’t that far away from my house (although the DJ there sucked).
Cam
To all the people wondering about Barry’s district. NO he does NOT represent the entire City. He only represents Ward 8. This is the poorest, most crime ridden part of DC. They do not have a lot of openly gay people there because anybody who can afford to has gotten out of the area ages ago. It has the highest unemployement, the lowest level of income and education, and the highest crime and murder rate in the entire city. With those stats no wonder Barry needs the gays to stir up his constituents. If he didn’t, they may finally notice that while he has been their council member they are the ONLY ward in the city that has not going through a dramatic improvement.
DC is pretty much one of if not the gayest city in the country, and at the anti gay rally Berry attended they could only get about 120 people to show up in a city of over half a million. More people show up to play kickball on the grass at the National Mall every night. Barry is just a sad old crackhead one step away from sitting on a corner picking at scabs and asking for change.
John from England(used to be just John but there are other John's)
@Cam:
So what are you, Gurlene and Chitown doing about this??
How depressing.
sal
shammmeeeee Mr Marion
Qjersey
He should shut his hole and focus on the fact that DC has the highest per capita rate of HIV/AIDS of any city in the entire US.
Chitown Kev
@John from England(used to be just John but there are other John’s):
Uh, I do not live in DC and I haven’t lived ther for over 20 years.
Chitown Kev
@John from England(used to be just John but there are other John’s):
And I am quite active with gay community organizations (both mainstream and African American) here in Chicago, including donating what little money I can locally and I have also donated money to the Courage Campaign for the repeal of Proposition 8 and plan on donating more.
And I might even take a weekend trip to Iowa this summer.
Why would you ask that question (not that it’s a bad question, I am wondering the same thing about the black gay community in DC, myself)?
namaste
the black community wont stand for marion barry. since when did crack heads get a say in anything?
getreal
This man has no credibility whatsoever. He is only barely relevant in certain neighborhoods in DC where largely elderly, low income, and often uneducated people continue to vote for him no matter what he says or does because their preachers tell them to. This assclown does not speak for me. As a black person who grew up in the DC area it is ironic that he is saying these things when you consider that DC as a city is permeated with gay culture more so than any city in America with the exception of San Francisco.
The Gay Numbers
It seems like it will withstand Congressional action according to Daily Kos.
macscruff
Among the black church folks in DC I can see how they might think there are very few gay people. They are quite sequestered among themselves.
But that culture is absolutely drenched with closeted men. When it comes down to it most will stand behind their families and church against gay rights, which in itself is ironic.
DC loves Marion Barry. People say if he ran for mayor again he would be elected.
He will have plenty of people backing him up, but I also see this as a negative action which will lead to a negative reaction over time within their own community.
The bible thumpers are cutting their own throats. Hallelujia =)
atdleft
@BradK: And you want to believe Mayor Crackhead? Gimme a break!
@getreal: How very true! DC’s people are living proof that African-Americans aren’t all homophobes. Marion Barry can run into the NOMbies’ arms if he wants to, but that won’t endear him with the pro-equality majority.
jackpacer
funny how his district believes that gay marriage is a sin but not unwed, drug addicted mommas having 8 babies by 8 different men and not a single one of them supporting their child. Don’t they realize that there very existance is payed for by the tax dollars of all those hard working gays over in NW. When i saw the footage of how made those black pastors got, all i could think of is that they have become they southern white people turning the hoses on blacks back in the sixties. The victims of hate have now become the haters.
Chitown Kev
@macscruff:
Honey, I got news for you. They are not so closeted.
Well, maybe inside Barry’s Ward they are but DC is the GAYEST city that I have ever lived in. And that includes New York and where I currently reside.
jason
How sad to see blacks being so narrow-minded! Perhaps we shouldn’t have marched with them during the Civil Rights movement.
getreal
You didn’t march with anyone douchebag. If you are going judge me a black gay rights on Marion Barry should I judge you on Carrie Prejean? There are stupid bigots in every race as you just illustrated with your comment.
getreal
I meant black gay rights activist
Chitown Kev
@getreal:
I figured that was a troll and ignored it, since that hasn’t been the tone of this thread.
swellster
I lived in DC for 12 years before moving to Columbus, OH a few years ago. I agree that it is the gayest city I have ever witnessed. The gay community (if you can call it that — I would call it the gay population) is striated and separated, but it is massive. Ward 8 is, in a word, a cesspool. Barry is being politically expedient for his the benefit of his constituents. He doesn’t speak for the city. He is a total nutbag and is best left ignored. Let’s not give him a national stage unless it is to publicize some of the more crazy and comical things he has said. My favorite is his line after being caught on tape smoking crack with a prostitute …”Goddamn bitch set me up.” There is a moral leader for you.
shelby84
Boy, it’s jerks like that that make it extra hard to be gay and black. Not all black people feel that way, and I know quite a few who are down with the struggle. But that pretty much part of the reason they are so many “down-low” brothers out there. I personally wish they would all stand up and pay the price to be who they are and stop being cowards.It’s a hefty price believe me! But hell, I did it and still have my teeth and waist size intact. It’s only then when we can shut up crack-head wind-bags like Barry.
jason
There should not be one black person who is opposed to gay rights. Not one. Consider that gay people marched with blacks during the 60’s civil rights struggles.
Not all black people are anti-gay but you can’t deny there is an anti-gay cultural imperative within black culture. Just look at rap music/hip-hop as well as Marion Barry. When I see a positive black gay role model, I might reconsider my position. But the simple fact is that blacks are hugely absent in anything to do with gay rights.
Chitown Kev
@jason:
Wow! Does Wanda Sykes count? Rod McCollom? Pam Spaulding? Read some Harlem Renaissance Literature.
James Baldwin? Audre Lorde? Bayard Rustin There are so, so, many past and present.
Try the Congressional Black Caucus. I presume that all of them are straight, but they are our allies with the exception of that one stone fool ‘Bama Congressman
Or maybe you want to stay right where you are at with that thought.
Within “white culture” there’s the whiteMormon Church, the white evangelical church, the white Ku Klux Klan, there’s all those rednecks in inland California and let’s not talk about all those straight white cracka asses in places like Oklahoma, Texas, Mississippi…etc. etc. etc.
Chitown Kev
@shelby84:
Then black gay folks in DC actually need to speak up.@John from England(used to be just John but there are other John’s):
Other than the appropriate cases that get national attention, do the queens in Liverpool and Birmingham run down to London and help them or do the queens from London run up to Liverpool or Birmingham. Or since the EU is thing, do you run to Berlin and Paris?
john
I feel like the ex-mayor is not speaking for Black People but for a narrow number of hyper-religious Black People. His generalizing and declaring himself a Black figurehead really disrespects and disregards ‘his’ community.
I live in the DC area and it was sad today to see video footage of the ministers using the same type of oration as MLK Jr. but for a totally negative cause. Honeslty it was a little more annoying that the media even gave them airtime. Its not like DC’s raging homeless problem or HIV crisis would benefit from the minister’s time.
Also did anyone notice how the mayor is kinda passing the buck and taking blame off himself in his comments?
I love the severely militant tone. Oh my gosh i hope riots break out and civil war happens. maybe the bigots will leave.
yup fight for your own rights and deny others theirs.
shelby84
@Chitown Kev: sweetie, I don’t live there or I would stand up and say something.
osocubano
Marion Barry is not speaking for Marion Barry.
He speaks for the elderly black voters who keep him in the City Council.
They’re dying out, anyway, and so is he.
Paul
Anyone who is that virulent is obviously on the DL.
Chitown Kev
@shelby84:
Oh, I would stand up and say something too. I feel EXACTLY where you are coming from.
blake
@jason:
How sad to see a white gay man showing his racist beliefs, blaming all African-Americans for the actions of a few. Who cares if the city council voted 12 to 1 in favor of the marriage acceptance and the majority of the council members are black? It’s easier for Jason and his ilk to rely on their racist ideology to slander people.
Jason, how different are you from the homophobes who make blanket statements against gays? Apparently not that different.
blake
@Chitown Kev:
For people like Jason, African-Americans aren’t real human beings who are individuals and think for themselves. All African-Americans think and act alike as if they were robots.
Facts get in the way. Things like MLK having Bayard Rustin, an openly gay black man, as a chief adviser means nothing. African-American governors like NY Gov. Patterson and Mass. Gov. Patrick or D.C. Mayor Fenty can champion gay marriage but their work is meaningless. The late Coretta Scott King spoke out against homophobia but that doesn’t matter to Jason.
Nope, to people like Jason, it’s easier for them to embrace anti-black racist opinions than deal with facts.
Of course, Jason has not problem separating white homophobes from other whites. The fact that the real power brokers in this country who traffic in anti-gay hate are white doesn’t seem to register for him as being a racial thing. The leaders of the GOP who pushed anti-gay legislation have been mainly white. The leaders of the Religious Right are mainly white.
jason
Stop using your blackness to insulate yourself from criticism that would normally apply to everybody else. The simple fact is that there is a cultural imperative within the black community – as is evidenced in black rap/hip-hop – to be homophobic. You also see it in Jamaican dancehall music, which encourages people to murder gays.
AJ
Silly Australian.
Cam
John from England(used to be just John but there are other John’s)
@Cam:
So what are you, Gurlene and Chitown doing about this??
How depressing.
________________________________________________________
campaigned and voted for the guy who replaced Barry, donated money, campaigned for two of the current councilpeople who supported our rights, written letters out to the neighborhood association against Barry etc… Barry is like a rundown burned out old house in a beautiful neighborhood, eventually it will get knocked down and replaced with something useful.
Chitown Kev
@jason:
So I should hold you responsible for the James Dobson’s and the Carrie Prejean’s and the Rick Warren’s and the Hank Williams’ and the Ku Klux Klans of the world?
Gotcha…
And I don’t personally listen to or purchase Jamaican dancehall or hip hop music and don’t and have never endorsed those sentiments. And I could direct you to very specific posts by black bloggers and black authors that have condemned the very things you site.
So if you choose to maintain a myopic and racist attitude that is your problem, not mine.
I have no tolerance for gay racists or African American homophobes. None.
Chitown Kev
@jason:
And now I can hold you, Jason, personally responsible for the white Mormon Church and their $20 million effort to ban marriage equality in California and the efforts of the white Karl Rove and the “white boy culture” in the Bush Administration and their evangelical allies for their successful efforts in funding, endorsing their amendments banning gay marriage.
msim
I cannot stand arrogant fools who refuse to be informed and let their personal prejudices (Crazy Barry’ homophobia, Queerty poster Jason’s racism) blind them to the truth.
They use their own ignorance to paint us all with the same brush.
Marion Barry’s black community isn’t my black community, and judging from that 12-1 vote; homophobes are not doing too well in DC.
Adam
here is how it is:
i am from washington, d.c., and i grew up with marion barry as my mayor. i watched as he was removed from office — twice! — for drug use and solicitation of prostitutes. my high school’s student body was 20% white; as far as i know, i was the only gay, white kid. i was threatened and asaulted daily, both metaphorically by the institution that keeps marion barry in office, and literally by my (black) classmates. i guess i have two points to make.
first: all of us who know marion barry know what he was thinking yesterday: opposing gay marriage will put him on the losing side of the fight, and supporting it will lose him his ignorant, black, church-manipulated constituency. marion barry, now in the formidable shadow of people like adrian fenty and barack obama — elegant, upstanding, temperate black politicians — thinks, “this time, I’m fucked. if i don’t vote with the pastors, they’re gonna throw me under the bus like they did to o.j.! and if i do, fenty will eat me alive!” it is naive to think he is standing up for his principles. marion barry may be a felon, but he is foremost a politician.
second: poor, urban black culture is terrible. before you pounce, i’d remind you that this isn’t racism — i don’t believe that black people are by nature inferior, by any means. that being said, in d.c., skin color, for cultural reasons, is a pretty good indicator of cruelty, contented ignorance, misogyny, homophobia, aggression, psychological imbalance, jealous entitlement, self-satisfaction, and arrogance. more to the point, skin color is a better indicator than wealth of those things. in the interest of our continued progress as a species, urban black culture, as it exists in d.c., needs to be gentrified all the way into the atlantic fucking ocean. seriously, i’ll go down to ward 8 and open a starbucks with my own two hands, if that what it takes.
on a side note, why do you think d.c. has such an astronomical aids rate? it is because gay men with the misfortune to have been born black in d.c.’s 8th ward are having terrified, anonymous, unprotected sex, and then going home to fuck their many girlfriends.
love,
adam
Chitown Kev
@Adam:
“second: poor, urban black culture is terrible. before you pounce, i’d remind you that this isn’t racism —”
I am actually more or less with much of what you up to that point.
Damn near everything after that is pure, unadultrated racism. I say that as an African American former resident of DC (but not the 8th Ward).
Adam
@Chitown Kev:
you might be right. at any rate, i know that i’m the wrong messenger; my tone got so shrill there, in part, as a reaction to a lifetime of not being able to intimate ideas like these gently. i’ll concede that the lack of a gentle option might be a (the?) seed of hatred.
but that word, ‘racism.’ does it refer to a belief in the different nature of a group of people? this belief exists (it was once the unchallenged definition of ‘racism’), but you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who subscribes to it today. does it refer to an unexamined preference for people who look like oneself? i’ve introspected this preference, and since my discovery, it has almost gone away (all gay people of a certain age can relate; when we ignore our own predilections, they become grotesque).
d.c., i’m sure you know this, is mostly a dilapidated place, filled with people whose fathers are dead or in prison for violent crime; whose wealthier inhabitants are self-segregated, white, and transient; and whose system of community representation is essentially a poll that asks the local black community whom they trust most not to call them on their bullshit. (a crackhead, duh.)
so i’ll turn the tables. according to the traditional definition of ‘racism,’ it is racist to believe that d.c.’s blacks are uniquely resilient and incorruptible. they are not. they are precisely as dysfunctional as you’d expect their environment to make them. i am not at all interested in assigning blame; public dialogue about race has proved how useless blame assignation is. however, in light of the sickening number of (black and white) gay men shot to death on 13th st. recently, it’s become clear that d.c.’s black culture, insofar as it is an aggressive, prison culture, has got to go.
i’d like to tell you what’s in my heart, as a gesture of trust. i take no pleasure in writing observations like these. rather, i feel grim relief. please believe this.
Chitown Kev
@Adam:
I haven’t lived in DC in 20 years, so I don’t know what it’s like today. if it is what you describe it is worse off than 20 years ago.
I’ll get back to you on lunch. Some of your assumptions are racist, some are not. Based on your post, I will assume, for the time being, that you are not.
But…later.
Adam
@Chitown Kev:
20 years ago, these trends were chronic. it’s not worse today, just more acute. the black community’s indignant fever is breaking, thank god. marion barry, vincent gray, and most black religious leaders have made careers out of the manipulation and arbitrage of poor blacks’ jealous feelings of entitlement. they are trying (with temporary success) to prolong d.c.’s ugly cultural war because they are profiteers. that’s why things look so bad right now.