NEWSLETTER

MARION BARRY: GUARDIAN ANGEL
OF PUNK ROCK - PART 1

By Ian Svenonius

Marion Barry, the much maligned former mayor of Washington, DC, is mostly known as a punch line. As a synonym for “smoking crack,” he embodied white America’s media-based fantasy of 80s urban blacks—entitled, lazy, corrupt, drug addled, and taking advantage of poor white people’s Christian tendency toward guilt and giving.

He was the hyper-masculine counterpart to Reagan’s “welfare queens,” leeching from the till that had been carefully built up by generations of courageous hard-working pilgrims. Before today’s “Bushisms,” there were compiled lists of Barry quotations, some real, most imagined, that proliferated in an effort to expose the dangers of giving power or representation to the black proletariat.

Barry was usually described in magazine and newspaper profiles as a “cat” or a “lion,” an animal who frequented ghetto strip clubs and lorded over his principality like a modern day Colonel Kurtz. He was imagined to be a dashiki-wearing Jim Jones who had duped his flock with black-power platitudes. DC was—like Mobutu’s Zaire—lost to the world, a jungle of corruption, the Eastern seaboard’s own Dark Continent.

When DC became the murder capital of the nation and one of the major loci of the crack epidemic, it was thought to be the logical conclusion of black rule. And when Barry was caught in an elaborately staged, high-tech FBI sting with a former girlfriend/FBI provocateur, smoking crack cocaine at her insistence, television viewers of the United States of America were overjoyed by the spectacle. His arrest tagline: “Bitch set me up” was featured on shirts and coffee mugs, and the news of his downfall was happily received by the latently racist everywhere. His rule of the Capitol widely considered a glaring example of why democracy was in fact mob rule, the ultimately scary and untenable 19th-century daydream of some “enlightened” crackpot.

When Barry was shockingly reelected five years after his disgrace, the elite saw it as a childish admonition by the blacks—a nihilistic tantrum by the mentally unfit who couldn’t understand that white America’s stern paternal care was in their best interest. The United States Congress stepped in to limit his power with a Federal “Mayoral Control Board” in an extraordinary act of intervention. Barry, faced with this bizarre predicament, chose not to seek a fifth term. Now a lowly city-council member, Barry was in the news again a couple years ago due to recent allegations of drug relapse. He’s a favorite punching bag for the media, ever useful as an invocation of the specter of black power’s intrinsic corruption.

Barry was not despised by everyone, however. In fact, in some quarters he was seen as a Medici figure, a paragon of enlightenment who had spread opportunities to the forgotten, the outsiders, and the non-conformists—including anticorporate underground rock ’n’ roll groups. Remember that Washington, DC, besides being the dastardly nexus of devil worshipping Masonic lobbyists and their whoring Congressional counterparts, also birthed a highly influential strain of activist punk and underground bands under Barry.

A strong sense of patriotic localism flourished in all the US hardcore communities of the era, a throwback to Renaissance Italy and the city states of ancient Greece. This was partially a reversion to tribalism à la West Side Story but also the refutation of a centralized entertainment industry that was completely out of touch. The early 80s was an era when the LA/NY juggernaut had gone soft. Arrogant executives were still listening to the Eagles and hadn’t infiltrated the underground—they didn’t even know it existed. Hollywood and Madison Avenue were highhanded and aloof and the cultural fantasies they created in videos like “Beat It” and TV shows like Miami Vice had nothing in common with the styles or the lives of their intended audiences. A vacuum was created that was filled by very particular music scenes in towns that weren’t traditional entertainment centers—places like Athens, GA; Minneapolis; Olympia, WA; Portland; Austin; and Washington, DC.

While a progressive or even radical political bent was not uncommon to punk or underground groups of that era, the bands of the DC scene were differentiated by the holy terror of corporate contamination that characterized them. They were held in both contempt and awe by their peers from other scenes for what was seen as a crypto-religiosity. DC punks overwhelmingly subscribed to a temperance philosophy called “Straight Edge” which was promulgated by a band called Minor Threat who urged their followers to defy the socially mandated manhood rituals of alcohol and LSD consumption. DC bands were therefore lampooned as an austerity cult of ascetics who practiced self-flagellation and meted out ultraviolence to nonbelievers. There were rumors that DC punk was an actual cult like the mysterious Hashasheen of Iraq, mystic warriors from the 11th century who fought the Crusaders, or an offshoot of one of the many 70s CIA counter-gang mind-control sects that were used to destroy hippie political activism.


TO BE CONTINUED
MARION BARRY | 1 | 2 |

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Comments

Anonymous, on Sep 27, 2009 wrote: this guy is such a good writer
	knuckles, on Nov 14, 2008 wrote: HR was/is a drug addict too. I aint talkin bout the Mary Jane either.
	bunny21x, on Oct 29, 2008 wrote: Um...Bad brains? The group that influenced all the other bands from dc? Were barred from playing any venues in that city to try to STOP all the other bands from starting. Not a mention in this article. how’s that for "latently racist" journalism/editing? Also, the heshesheen smoked shitloads of hash and opium so i don’t get the straightedge connection at all.
Anonymous, on Oct 7, 2008 wrote: "Other than the murder rate, we have a low crime rate." --Marion Barry, Genius Extraordinaire
Anonymous, on Oct 7, 2008 wrote: Ian’s right. Blacks have it better in Africa. Oh, wait...
Anonymous, on Oct 6, 2008 wrote: Every time Ian appears with his $5K-words and wretched commie homilies and is justifably attacked, it seems as if the same person tells us to Google or Wikipedia him as if we’re going to be awestruck that he was in a horrible band and wrote a couple stinkifyingly awful books no one bought.
	Soda-POP77, on Sep 3, 2008 wrote: Fuck this. A better article would be how Marion Barry managed any of this. Y’know, other than getting more crack?
Anonymous, on Aug 16, 2008 wrote: "what exactly have you contributed to culture besides your ’cutting’ commentary?" ever heard the make up? nation of ulysses? weird war? they are all better than anything you’ll do bud.
Anonymous, on Aug 11, 2008 wrote: Hmm, that’s pretty interesting. I wonder if people nostalgic for the Bush years in 2023 will be talking about the crucial formative years of bands like SheDaisy, Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers, Diana DeGarmo, Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, or Brad Paisley?
Anonymous, on Aug 3, 2008 wrote: "...the socially mandated manhood rituals...such as LSD consumption..." Channeling Jack Webb? I remember it well, the incessant pressure exerted on me by buzz-cut jocks at high school football games: "Whatssa’ matter, pantywaist? Too sissy to TASTE the COLORS, to SMELL the SOUNDS?"
Anonymous, on Jul 27, 2008 wrote: you guys are all talking about racism as if it was bad or something.
	paddym, on Jul 17, 2008 wrote: Fuck does Ian ever talk shit to death. Can you imagine what a fucking buzzkill he’d be at parties? And fuck the ’black’ community. It’s bullshit. Plenty of Black folks are embarrassed by turds like Barry and Kwame Kilpatrick and want no part of the jerk-off white liberals defending them.
Anonymous, on Jul 14, 2008 wrote: Me thinks the douche with the Bad Brains hangup may have had his manlove for HR spurned and is only now working through his issues with unrequited love. Your "oh minor threat and bad brains" suck line sounds so very fucking hipsterish. What, they’re not obscure enough for you? But enough about you, let’s get back to flaming Ian. Leftie called dude, she wants that pube in your teeth back.
Anonymous, on Jul 14, 2008 wrote: you are a fucking idiot. what exactly have you contributed to culture besides your ’cutting’ commentary? go check your myspace.
Anonymous, on Jul 11, 2008 wrote: You guys don’t get it. You may think that Minor Threat and Bad Brains were good rock bands. Personally, I find them to be dull and highly overrated, but I recognize that that’s all thoroughly subjective. But these bands were not socially/politically relevant in any way, a fact that many an aging punker seems to have difficulty with. There is no disputing that these bands they were - like most rock bands - made up of stupid people with precious little insight. "Guilty of Being White" may not be racist, but it is certainly stupid and naive. And, as I said before, Bad Brains were God-fearing gay-bashers. This may not preclude from being a decent band and/or decent people, but it does mean that they are clearly fucking stupid, sorry. Now does all of this mean that these bands harmed society, are a negative force in the world politically, and/or should not be enjoyed by DC patriots and/or those clinging to adolescence? Certainly not. Enjoy. BUT it does indicate that this idea of "counterculture" and punk rock as important social forces for political good is RIDICULOUS. So by all means, go forth and enjoy your DC music if you must, but don’t fool yourself into thinking that it says or means anything of substance and/or political worth.
Anonymous, on Jul 11, 2008 wrote: p.s. this "Anonymous" bullshit really sucks b/c not only does no one care enough to make a "profile" (i.e.: gayest idea EVER!), but it also hinders readers’ ability to respond to each others’ comments...
Anonymous, on Jul 11, 2008 wrote: wow, and I thought Henry Rollins was a pompous dipshit blathering his delusions of grandeur about a scene no one gives a flying fuck about...you win Ian!
Anonymous, on Jul 11, 2008 wrote: And Ian, you and i both know Leftie had her way with your sissy ass down in the bowels of the old 930. Also Nation of Ulysses sucked.
Anonymous, on Jul 11, 2008 wrote: To the dumb fag who is hatin’ on Bad Brains -- suck a dick. As for this retarded article, spoken like a true white guilt-ridden hipster douche. The only people who "lament" the loss of social services are moron white kids at the raven who know not of which they speak -- because of they did, they’d realize there never were any goddamn services. Granted, nothing under the last three regimes has gotten better for the poor, but that doesn’t make Hizzoner some kind of proletariat hero. In fact, given the hope and promise he embodied when he came to power, his almost immediate decent into corruption and petty cronyism was and is all the more sad. I mean, noone expected any of his successors to actually DO anything to rise up the people, unlike marion. As someone who came up in the hardcore scene, i can assure you, Hizzoner had only a small impact on it, regardless of any of the sophomoric nonsense the bands may have spouted at the time. DC hardcore was a product of our unique combination of urban flight/blight, disaffection with the suburban thing amongst white youth, ronald fucking reagan and the fact that we produced insane chracters like HR, Henry Rollins, Squint and a certain enormous black lesbian skinhead who ran a gang of nazi assholes and who’d make skinny little hipsters like you eat her horrible pussy on command in the bathroom of the 930.
	bonerdreamz69, on Jul 11, 2008 wrote: How is it misogynistic to say his former girlfriend collaborated with the FBI to draw him into a drug sting? That’s far less sexist than it is simply factual. Also, he’s not saying latent racism was responsible for the bust (though it probably was), but for the resulting press and t-shirt bonanza and widespread white celebration of Barry’s downfall. Swing and a miss, asshole.
Anonymous, on Jul 11, 2008 wrote: Svenonius says that the national ridicule for Barry’s glass dick antics stem from latent racism, but blames Barry’s girlfriend for making him smoke crack. That necessarily makes Ian more latently misogynistic than the entire country is latently racist.
Anonymous, on Jul 10, 2008 wrote: socialism sucks. fuck you svenonius.
Anonymous, on Jul 10, 2008 wrote: fuck yeah, Svenonius!
Anonymous, on Jul 10, 2008 wrote: another fool who thinks "guilty of being white" is a racist song.
Anonymous, on Jul 10, 2008 wrote: holler at ian svenonius. nation of ulysses=excellent, make-up even better
Anonymous, on Jul 10, 2008 wrote: Wikipedia Ian Sevonius fools.
Anonymous, on Jul 10, 2008 wrote: yo whoever said bad brains are religious homophobes, you are right but that does not detract from the fact they are an awesome band, as is minor threat, i mean seriously cant you accept the oeuvre without judging the artist? you’re like people who refuse to read celine. also in my opinion this article kicks booty in the direction of outer space what a fantastic way to prove to my mom that her opinion about barry is moronic marion barry for president
Anonymous, on Jul 10, 2008 wrote: HAHAHAHAHA: "A strong sense of patriotic localism flourished in all the US hardcore communities of the era, a throwback to Renaissance Italy and the city states of ancient Greece"...HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Anonymous, on Jul 10, 2008 wrote: i like reading this guys stuff but he exaggerates everything. The last sentence is just ridiculous.
Anonymous, on Jul 10, 2008 wrote: wow you other commenter fuckers don’t get it. it’s fuckin sad.
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