Mayor Barry Robbed
That 2006 opens with the murder of a former council woman’s grandson, the robbery of the city’s infamously beloved Mayor for Life give me pause among the moments of revelry and resolution making.
The ironies are many and evident, bright like the Christmas lights still hanging on my lazy neighbor’s front porch. Two city servants are victims of the city’s worst elements, murder and intimidation. Barry was a victim of a crime (instead of a perpetrator? Ouch, Rhonda!) after leading the city through it’s reign of being the Murder Capitol. The perps victimized public officials who, arguably, cared the most about them. And still care. Truly ironic. My heart goes out to Sandy Allen, who’s other grandson was charged with a summer murder. Just unbelievable. Barry on the other hand is something I’m thinking about…
Lots of folks have snide things to say about Barry getting robbed. That he got “got,” Mos Def style, as if it karma is a…that all of the years of being soft on prosecuting criminals have caught up with him. There were also corny variations of his T-shirt defense slogan, “B*tch set me up.” The Post even felt the need to remind readers of Barry’s temporary demise with the drug convictions, and tax returns he sent in such a fashion to redefine Colored People’s time.
Propelling each sucker punch is a degree of truth. Honestly, it’s easy for me to come up with these below-the-belt jibes cause I detested Barry and all the “Blacks can’t do nothing right”-ness that he projected to the world with his fiscal ineptitude and attempt to lead the city high on Bolivian marching dust.
But this DC girl has another perspective on Mair Barry and this unfortunate set of events. (If you’ve been in this town long enough you know how to pronounce the title with the appropriate drop-jawed sorta-Southern accent).
Prompted by Prince’s ditty, “Sign o’ the times,” I think about the perpetrators: kids. Maybe they were older than that, but the point is, back in the day they would have been eligible for the Summer Youth Employment Program. And that’s what it comes down to. SYEP.
Summer Youth Employment was one of the youth programs Barry launched and sustained through his tenure as Mayor. Every DC kid fourteen and older was eligible for a job in a registered site. Can’t even count How many kids signed up for SYEP each summer. Er’body. Personally, SYEP allowed me to get my first paid gig as a violinist, playing violin with the DC Youth Orchestra. For most of us, our jobs with SYEP were the first experiences we proudly listed on our resumes under “Employment.”
Barry came through for youth in other ways. He attended every high school graduation the year I graduated. Yes, he was late, grandstanded and made a minstrel-mockery that embarrassed our principal. But the man said he was going to attend, and he did. He initiated the Mayor’s Youth Leadership Program that welcomed young people into higher levels of city government. Barry was a visible and accessible mayor that made us, young people, feel like the city was honestly ours. And not in the sense that “we run this joint” like old Oak Hill, but that there was a role for us in the maintenance and betterment of the city. (“Betterment” is one of those old Civil Rights words).
These nostalgia-laced missives are not intended to sugar coat the man’s legacy. His failures are evident, and I’m pretty bitter about them. However, his legacy of commitment to young people begs investigation of what's going on with this generation that they would rob him in his own house. What do the young people know about the DC of old? Apparently as much as the sucker-punchers.
The ironies are many and evident, bright like the Christmas lights still hanging on my lazy neighbor’s front porch. Two city servants are victims of the city’s worst elements, murder and intimidation. Barry was a victim of a crime (instead of a perpetrator? Ouch, Rhonda!) after leading the city through it’s reign of being the Murder Capitol. The perps victimized public officials who, arguably, cared the most about them. And still care. Truly ironic. My heart goes out to Sandy Allen, who’s other grandson was charged with a summer murder. Just unbelievable. Barry on the other hand is something I’m thinking about…
Lots of folks have snide things to say about Barry getting robbed. That he got “got,” Mos Def style, as if it karma is a…that all of the years of being soft on prosecuting criminals have caught up with him. There were also corny variations of his T-shirt defense slogan, “B*tch set me up.” The Post even felt the need to remind readers of Barry’s temporary demise with the drug convictions, and tax returns he sent in such a fashion to redefine Colored People’s time.
Propelling each sucker punch is a degree of truth. Honestly, it’s easy for me to come up with these below-the-belt jibes cause I detested Barry and all the “Blacks can’t do nothing right”-ness that he projected to the world with his fiscal ineptitude and attempt to lead the city high on Bolivian marching dust.
But this DC girl has another perspective on Mair Barry and this unfortunate set of events. (If you’ve been in this town long enough you know how to pronounce the title with the appropriate drop-jawed sorta-Southern accent).
Prompted by Prince’s ditty, “Sign o’ the times,” I think about the perpetrators: kids. Maybe they were older than that, but the point is, back in the day they would have been eligible for the Summer Youth Employment Program. And that’s what it comes down to. SYEP.
Summer Youth Employment was one of the youth programs Barry launched and sustained through his tenure as Mayor. Every DC kid fourteen and older was eligible for a job in a registered site. Can’t even count How many kids signed up for SYEP each summer. Er’body. Personally, SYEP allowed me to get my first paid gig as a violinist, playing violin with the DC Youth Orchestra. For most of us, our jobs with SYEP were the first experiences we proudly listed on our resumes under “Employment.”
Barry came through for youth in other ways. He attended every high school graduation the year I graduated. Yes, he was late, grandstanded and made a minstrel-mockery that embarrassed our principal. But the man said he was going to attend, and he did. He initiated the Mayor’s Youth Leadership Program that welcomed young people into higher levels of city government. Barry was a visible and accessible mayor that made us, young people, feel like the city was honestly ours. And not in the sense that “we run this joint” like old Oak Hill, but that there was a role for us in the maintenance and betterment of the city. (“Betterment” is one of those old Civil Rights words).
These nostalgia-laced missives are not intended to sugar coat the man’s legacy. His failures are evident, and I’m pretty bitter about them. However, his legacy of commitment to young people begs investigation of what's going on with this generation that they would rob him in his own house. What do the young people know about the DC of old? Apparently as much as the sucker-punchers.
posted by Rhonda Henderson at 8:50 PM
2 Comments:
Black on Black crime is just so awful...it's sad and a new form of crime that I didn't know exisited...the way white folk act you would think that it was only black on white crime. Can I say that here?
YOU ARE ON THE MONEY, HONEY. ALTHOUGH I WAS A MAIR BURREE fan...got my first job through SYEP...lol, I understand your sentiments.
Yolonda
Coffeedreamz.com
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