Cora Masters Barry, the widow of the late former mayor of Washington D.C., Marion Barry, took aim at the pizza chain &pizza after the restaurant named a new dessert offering Marion Berry Knots.
Masters Barry described the pizza chain’s dessert as “racist and disrespectful” in her remarks to DC News Now.“ I just think it’s racist. In this city, it is outrageously racist. You can print that. It’s racist and disrespectful,” she said.
The pizza chain’s press release announcing the dessert appears to make pointed references to drugs in its rollout.
Mayor Marion Barry was infamously mocked and derided by quite a few comedians after he was caught on camera smoking crack cocaine, but society has progressed past a juvenile understanding of drug use in the decades since.
Barry also bristled at these depictions himself, telling The New York Times after a 1997 Saturday Night Live sketch featuring Rudy Guliani, Jim Brewer, and Tracy Morgan aired, “I think the part about me and Giuliani was just despicable—-the implication had to do with drugs; the person playing me was rubbing his nose. As a fellow mayor, [Giuliani] participated in extreme character assassination. I’ve been clean over seven and a half years, and I’ve been an inspiration to a lot of the recovering community…When they gave Giuliani those lines, he should have just refused to say them.”
As his widow did with the pizza chain, Barry also took offense to racist undertones he believed were present in the skit.
“There were racial overtones. The guy had a beeper, trying to sell a bicycle. They would not have done a white mayor — a famous white person — that way. They low-downed it,” Barry told the paper.
The pizza chain describes the Marion Berry Knots as follows: “For a good time, it’s the powder that’s the ultimate headline grabber. The Marion Berry Knots have enough powdered sugar that will have customers bumping elbows to order and even force the DEA to look twice.”
It’s not just the words that brought the scrutiny of Masters Barry and some residents of Washington D.C., but the accompanying pictures as well.
In one photo, the knots are arranged alongside a small pile of white powder, seemingly in reference to how someone snorting cocaine would arrange cocaine in its powder form.
As Clarine Thomas, a resident of Southeast D.C., told DC News Now, “I think this is definitely in very, very poor taste. And it does not represent what we stand for, especially not in this community. So very, very disappointed. It’s gonna make me rethink even buying something here.”
Thomas continued, “Being a pillar here in our community, we want partners in our community that are going to help to make things better, not make light and make fun of something that’s really serious, like substance abuse.”
Joining Thomas and Masters Barry in criticizing the pizza chain’s dessert was David Dobbs Jr., who told the outlet, “The reason why we go to Pizza Hut or any other pizza place is because we see the pizza and the cheese, but now we have messages like that are suggesting drugs. Absolutely insane.”
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