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D.C. activists are calling for the removal of a new menu item at a pizza chain that some say is "racist" and disrespectful to the late mayor Marion Barry.
According to Fox5, Pizza chain "&pizza" is facing backlash over its new menu item "Marion Berry Knots," which the company says "may not be the perfect dessert, but they’re the perfect dessert for D.C."
A description of the dessert item on the &pizza website reads: "These knots will blow you away" next to a small pile of white powder sugar.
Though the pizza chain didn't explicitly state that the new menu item was named after Barry, who served four terms in D.C., activists are linking the knots to the former mayor following a 1990 scandal where he was arrested in a high-profile FBI sting for smoking crack cocaine.
The D.C. branch of the NAACP called the menu item "inflammatory, culturally insensitive, and drug-use insinuating." The organization is calling for the removal of the "Marion Berry Knots" and demanding the restaurant direct funding to support substance-abuse prevention in all cities within their marketing area.
"The life, legacy, lineage, and name of Marion Barry deserves to be remembered as a pioneer for economic development, real-estate development, black business empowerment, youth employment and as the Mayor of the people," Akosua Ali, NAACP D.C. President, said in a statement. "Mayor Barry taught us the power of economics and today, we call on the community to demand &pizza right this egregious wrong."
Barry's widow, Cora Masters Barry, called the dessert and &pizza's advertisement tactics "racist."
“I just think it’s racist,” she said “In this city, it is outrageously racist. You can print that. It’s racist and disrespectful.”
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