A DC council member is apologizing after he pushed a conspiracy theory that a wealthy Jewish family controlled the weather. In a story first reported by the Washington Post, Trayon White posted a video to Facebook Friday with the following narration: "Man, it just started snowing out of nowhere this morning, man. Y'all better pay attention to this climate control, man, this climate manipulation. And DC keep talking about, 'We a resilient city.' And that's a model based off the Rothschilds controlling the climate to create natural disasters they can pay for to own the cities, man. Be careful." The criticism began quickly, and White eventually offered a mea culpa: "I work hard everyday to combat racism and prejudices of all kinds," said the African-American lawmaker, before apologizing "to the Jewish community" and adding, "I did not intend to be anti-Semitic."
The Washington City Paper describes the 33-year-old as an "up-and-coming District pol" but says observers were wondering, "What was he thinking?" White declined to comment on the source of his original comments, but the Post notes that the Rothschilds "are a famous European business dynasty" and the subject of numerous conspiracy theories in the nether regions of the internet. The "resilient city" remark apparently refers to an initiative by another prominent family, the Rockefellers, about which similar conspiracy theories abound. Fellow council member Brianne Nadeau, who's Jewish, took note of White's apology and sounded forgiving about the mess: "It is my sincere hope that my colleague has learned from this experience." (More conspiracy theory stories.)
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