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D.C. councilmember and former Mayor of Washington D.C. Marion Barry has never been one to shy away from controversy (or to walk right into it). So it comes as no large surprise that he recently found himself right in the middle of a mess of his own doing. During a D.C. Council budget hearing in April, Barry pointed the finger at D.C. hospitals for hiring immigrants.
Creating controversy, Marion Barry at the time said,
“It’s so bad, that if you go to the hospital now, you find a number of immigrants who are nurses, particularly from the Philippines. And no offense, but let’s grow our own teachers, let’s grow our own nurses — and so that we don’t have to be scrounging around in our community clinics and other kinds of places — having to hire people from somewhere else.”
After such a comment, not many people would want to find themselves in a hospital – but that’s exactly where Barry ended up this weekend. Hospitalized in Las Vegas with a blood clot, Marion Barry quickly tweeted out his thanks to the “kind professional Filipino staff.”
As he posted to Twitter,
“Got a blood clot while waiting on plane in Memphis. Taking blood thiner. I thank God it was caught. #thankGodALLthetime.” He then added, “I also thank outstanding medical staff, incl. kind professional Filipino staff. I stand corrected; I truly didn’t mean 2 hurt or offend.”
Barry has since been released from the hospital to attend the International Council of Shopping Centers retail conference. He’ll be on blood thinners and will concentrate on exercising every day. Perhaps he should also concentrate on changing his racist ways, and keeping some of his thoughts to himself.
