JACL Statement on Marion Barry Remarks
The Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), the largest and oldest Asian American human and civil rights organization in the nation, condemns Washington D.C. City Councilman Marion Barry for his continued bigoted remarks concerning the role of Asian Americans in the city’s economy. Within the past month he has made public statements that are shameful and unbecoming a public official who alleges to be a champion of civil rights. Barry needs to apologize for continuing to point to Asian Americans as the problem and should recognize that the American people of Asian heritage are as American as anyone else and have been a key in the economic growth and development of small business and the health sector.
Barry, in a hearing last week where he categorized Asian American nurses as people “from somewhere else” and specifically identified Filipino American nurses, stated, “In fact, it is so bad, that if you to to the hospital now, you find a number of immigrants who are nurses, particularly from the Philippines.” This is the same kind of inflammatory rhetoric that flamed the fires of racism toward Japanese Americans in the aftermath of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and lead to their indefinite detention in concentration camps during World War II. Responsible public officials should be closing the racial divide and not widening animosities that are based on false and misleading assumptions.
His statements continue to perpetuate the mistaken public perception that all who are not white nor African American, in the case of Barry’s district in Washington DC, do not belong in our society and are taking away business and jobs in America. This is far from the truth. Filipino Americans were among the earliest immigrants from Asia over 150 years ago. They have overcome decades of huge barriers in education and employment to become highly skilled in the health care industry and are in many cases multi-generational Americans. Like too often occurs in our society, Barry himself, who has used skin color to point out discrimination, has now committed the same egregious error in judgement.
Barry is in a position to change this kind of negative stereotyping and he must take advantage of this incident to right many decades of wrongs. He needs to apologize to the Asian American community and set in motion actions to heal the chasm he has created by his thoughtless remarks. Barry can do something positive in a sincere and bridge building manner. To do anything less is a discredit to all he has accomplished in his long career as a public servant.
