D.C. Council member Marion Barry stepped up his campaign on Thursday to mend relations with the Asian community, apologizing again for disparaging remarks he made about Koreans and Filipinos and pledging to work to improve ties between them and African Americans.
Yet on his way toward racial harmony, Barry (D-Ward 8) committed another faux pas — this time directed at Polish people — and presided over a sometimes raucous community meeting at which African Americans repeated complaints about the way Koreans maintain carry-out shops.
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Asked about the underlying sources of the conflict, Barry said the United States “has had racial tensions since it was founded.”
“The Irish caught hell, the Jews caught hell, the Polacks caught hell,” Barry said, invoking a word that Polish people have viewed as disparaging. “We want Ward 8 to be the model of diversity.”
Yeah, nothing like a few Polacks to add to your diversity model.
It's amazing how many people there are who adopt the fashionable attitude about certain groups and think they have racism whipped, not stopping to realize that they still commit the same sin against other people, that of considering only group membership instead of according individuals their unique worth and dignity. We all have some groups we have more trouble seeing the individuals in. It's something we always have to be vigilant about, because racism does not spring from some dark recess of the human soul. It's a byproduct of our legitimate -- i.e. necessary for survival -- need to discriminate, to sort quickly by noting common characteristics. There's a line between using that instinct for good and for bad, and it's too easy to cross it.
