Anyone been here since the 80s / early 90s? How did smart locals react to Marion Barry

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Right under your Watch everyone decent left dc. Crime schools sucked and cronyisim.. white people have turned dc around.

Almost every American city had a population collapse in the second half of the 20th century. DC was hardly unusual. Barry was a symptom, not a cause.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's something that has gone right over the heads of all of you here clucking about how much Barry sucked: the people who put him in office don't give the slightest damn what you think. You're white people. Most of you moved here within the last decade or so. Barry was never your Mayor. Your experience and your opinion, when it comes to Marion Barry, is invalid and completely without merit. What you say....it just doesn't matter. Not to us. We were here. We remember Barry. And we were never embarrassed of him. Newly arrived white people don't get to rewrite history, and don't get to give us our own opinions. So call him all the names you want. It just helps us identify you as a racist. Not that we needed any more help, but still.

Gosh, I thought a mayor was supposed to represent *all* of his or her constituents. To think, Barry wasn't my mayor because I am white. Good to know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's something that has gone right over the heads of all of you here clucking about how much Barry sucked: the people who put him in office don't give the slightest damn what you think. You're white people. Most of you moved here within the last decade or so. Barry was never your Mayor. Your experience and your opinion, when it comes to Marion Barry, is invalid and completely without merit. What you say....it just doesn't matter. Not to us. We were here. We remember Barry. And we were never embarrassed of him. Newly arrived white people don't get to rewrite history, and don't get to give us our own opinions. So call him all the names you want. It just helps us identify you as a racist. Not that we needed any more help, but still.

Gosh, I thought a mayor was supposed to represent *all* of his or her constituents. To think, Barry wasn't my mayor because I am white. Good to know.

He wasn't your mayor because you didn't live here

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's something that has gone right over the heads of all of you here clucking about how much Barry sucked: the people who put him in office don't give the slightest damn what you think. You're white people. Most of you moved here within the last decade or so. Barry was never your Mayor. Your experience and your opinion, when it comes to Marion Barry, is invalid and completely without merit. What you say....it just doesn't matter. Not to us. We were here. We remember Barry. And we were never embarrassed of him. Newly arrived white people don't get to rewrite history, and don't get to give us our own opinions. So call him all the names you want. It just helps us identify you as a racist. Not that we needed any more help, but still.

Gosh, I thought a mayor was supposed to represent *all* of his or her constituents. To think, Barry wasn't my mayor because I am white. Good to know.

He wasn't your mayor because you didn't live here

Op You are a racist sorry not sorry for gentrification and making dc an attractive Place Again thanks to whites

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's something that has gone right over the heads of all of you here clucking about how much Barry sucked: the people who put him in office don't give the slightest damn what you think. You're white people. Most of you moved here within the last decade or so. Barry was never your Mayor. Your experience and your opinion, when it comes to Marion Barry, is invalid and completely without merit. What you say....it just doesn't matter. Not to us. We were here. We remember Barry. And we were never embarrassed of him. Newly arrived white people don't get to rewrite history, and don't get to give us our own opinions. So call him all the names you want. It just helps us identify you as a racist. Not that we needed any more help, but still.

Gosh, I thought a mayor was supposed to represent *all* of his or her constituents. To think, Barry wasn't my mayor because I am white. Good to know.

He wasn't your mayor because you didn't live here

Op You are a racist sorry not sorry for gentrification and making dc an attractive Place Again thanks to whites

I know this was a clickable comment. But actually a lot of the development ideas that have come to fruition now were ideas that Barry had long ago. The Anacostia Waterfront, 14th street etc. But as I mentioned before he sucked implementation of those ideas. Anthony Williams who was a good manager was able to get the ball rolling on those ideas. He's black.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's a "smart local"?

Someone who sells you the house you bought in Logan for $1,730,000 that they paid $190,000 for in 1988.

That's me. A smart local.

Care to guess what we call you?

Sounds more like luck.

[Anonymous]

Mid-40s white woman who was living here in the 90s. I voted for him. He was... I don’t know. He spoke to me and my friends. We were young, idealistic, and Schwartz (?) who ran against him was so not in touch with younger voters. It was about the time that dc was starting to change and we were tired of the white people live wotp and black people live eotp.

He wasn’t a great Mayor, but it was a great time to live in this city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's a "smart local"?

Someone who sells you the house you bought in Logan for $1,730,000 that they paid $190,000 for in 1988.

That's me. A smart local.

Care to guess what we call you?

Sounds more like luck.

Also bought in Logan in the 90s. It was luck (it was all I could afford and no one wanted to live with the hookers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What's a "smart local"?

OP means white.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's something that has gone right over the heads of all of you here clucking about how much Barry sucked: the people who put him in office don't give the slightest damn what you think. You're white people. Most of you moved here within the last decade or so. Barry was never your Mayor. Your experience and your opinion, when it comes to Marion Barry, is invalid and completely without merit. What you say....it just doesn't matter. Not to us. We were here. We remember Barry. And we were never embarrassed of him. Newly arrived white people don't get to rewrite history, and don't get to give us our own opinions. So call him all the names you want. It just helps us identify you as a racist. Not that we needed any more help, but still.

Gosh, I thought a mayor was supposed to represent *all* of his or her constituents. To think, Barry wasn't my mayor because I am white. Good to know.

He wasn't your mayor because you didn't live here

Which is BS, because I lived there all my life. Who do you think you are? My entire family are DC natives. And we're white. So back off on your, "He's not your mayor" crap. You clearly know nothing about all the white people who have lived in DC for generations. If anyone's a racist here, it's you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lifelong D.C. And D.C.metro area resident: white, male, 45, born in PG,lived in Ivy City, Petworth and Columbia Heights in the early through late 90's. Then moved to MoCo, then back to Palisades, now live in Anne Arundel.

I liked Barry.

That's an unpopular opinion among the newly arrived arrogant class around here, but I don't care. I'm DCAF.

I liked him because he was spoke for people who had no real voice before. Because his summer jobs program gave lots of D.C. kids their first chance to earn a dollar. Because he handed out turkeys to people who would otherwise be eating Popeyes or ramen for Thanksgiving. Because he was a flawed man and showed flawed young people that they could still do something. Because he was an Eagle Scout, like me. Because he was smart enough to get a Masters in Chemistry (getting a D in O-chem was my proudest achievement in college. It was the hardest grade I ever worked for). I liked Barry because he never forgot where he came from, always had real-person problems plaguing him, and despite the opportunities, he never grew rich from his being Mayor for Life. He died broke as fuck.

I liked Barry. And IDGAF what any of you think.

AMEN, AMEN, and AMEN!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m black, moved to DC recently, and also wonder about this. I recall him being seen as a joke in national news growing up. Also don’t understand his appeal among DC natives, and their willingness to excuse his major indiscretions.

He said what a bunch of uneducated/poor blacks wanted to hear and he did deliver on some things.

Before you call me racist it's the same thing with Trump and poor whites now.....

It's cute that you believe that his only support came from the uneducated and/or poor. That speaks volumes about you and your beliefs and not him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's something that has gone right over the heads of all of you here clucking about how much Barry sucked: the people who put him in office don't give the slightest damn what you think. You're white people. Most of you moved here within the last decade or so. Barry was never your Mayor. Your experience and your opinion, when it comes to Marion Barry, is invalid and completely without merit. What you say....it just doesn't matter. Not to us. We were here. We remember Barry. And we were never embarrassed of him. Newly arrived white people don't get to rewrite history, and don't get to give us our own opinions. So call him all the names you want. It just helps us identify you as a racist. Not that we needed any more help, but still.

Gosh, I thought a mayor was supposed to represent *all* of his or her constituents. To think, Barry wasn't my mayor because I am white. Good to know.

Can you imagine that racist PPs comment in reverse? If, say, a white person said he didn't care if the blacks in Rockville didn't like the mayor? We are white and like him, and blacks don't count!

[Anonymous]

White female here who grew up in affluent ward 3. Graduated high school mid 90s and remember the arrest etc. We did not like Barry because services were atrocious when he was mayor, at least by the mid 80s. Just dreadful. Trash pick up was random and often skipped, people who worked in government were horrifically rude, just terrible terrible stories. I very much appreciated Fenty as a result.

I do remember feeling a bit uneasy about the set up. We weren't joyful about it. And I was very careful not to say anything negative about Barry around African Americans. Some of the African Americans who attended my big three were very defensive of him, citing the summer jobs program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's a "smart local"?

Someone who sells you the house you bought in Logan for $1,730,000 that they paid $190,000 for in 1988.

That's me. A smart local.

Care to guess what we call you?

Significantly younger than you?