Here in Los Angeles there has always been a wide range of ethnic and racial diversity and politics. Over the weekend a secret audio recording in which the Los Angeles City Council president, two of her colleagues and the county’s top labor official discussed race and power in coarse and at times racist terms behind closed doors.
The audio offered a rare window into the behind-the-scenes machinations of the redistricting process and the bare-knuckled fighting between various groups trying to secure political power.
As an example, the council members discussed Council member Mike Bonin, a White man. Clips of the leaked audio posted by the Times, Martinez is heard recounting a conversation and says “Bonin thinks he’s f**king Black.”
Also, Martinez says Bonin appeared with his son on a float in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade and he “handled his young Black son as though he were an accessory.” And “Parece changuito,” or “He’s like a monkey.”
In addition, she said “I see a lot of little short dark people,” Martinez said of that section of Koreatown, employing stereotypes long used against Oaxacans in Mexico and in the United States.
“I was like, I don’t know where these people are from, I don’t know what village they came [from], how they got here,” Martinez said, before adding “Tan feos” — “They’re ugly.”
My podcasts typically review the state of politics and racism in the nation but the delicate balance between various factions in this city and beyond in are emblematic of racial imbalance.
As we might imagine state redistricting is a furious and partisan struggle, and we also see it at the local level.
The redistricting process typically involves open discussions of race, but the divisive and racist comments heard in the audio shocked individuals and groups across the city.
For background the LA city racial background is: White 29%, Latino 47%, Asian: 11%, Black: 9%.
Whites hold six of the positions on the 15-member council, while they now make up only 29% of L.A.’s population.
Black officials hold three seats, the equivalent of 20% of those on the council, despite their lower population in the city. Latinos, with nearly half of the city’s residents, hold less than 27% of the council seats.
So, facing backlash, Nury Martinez apologized and stepped down Monday as council president, though she did not resign from the council.
Mayor Garcetti and U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla — and a host of other politicians and groups called on her to leave the council entirely.
They also urged the other politicians in the conversation, Council members Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo to step down.
Calls for changes to the city’s governance structure reverberated across Los Angeles on Monday.
Los Angeles has experienced dramatic demographic changes in the nearly half century since Tom Bradley, a Black man, was elected mayor.
powered by a multi-racial coalition
The setback is painful because leaders and activists had been making progress to bring people of many races together to fight for more housing and increases in the city’s minimum wage.
So, at the NABWMT we have been active in politics and racial education. This is a chance to call on on better angels to allow is to get together in cites and states around the country.