A flurry of resignations and apologies have thrown the Los Angeles City Council into disarray after an anonymous source leaked audio from a private meeting where three council members and a city labor leader insulted political enemies, distrusted acquaintances, and even a 3-year-old boy, using racist and offensive language.
During an October 2021 meeting focused on the redistricting of the city, City Council President Nury Martinez used racist language to describe constituents and other members of the council. Martinez was in the room with fellow council members Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo, as well as Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera, who all took part in the meeting and joined Martinez in denigrating members of the Los Angeles community.
A recording of the call was first shared on Reddit by an anonymous person whose account has since been suspended, according to the Los Angeles Times, which first reported the story.
The person who shared the nearly year-old conversation has not yet been identified. In their Reddit post, however, they expressed shock over what was said.
“You know it happens, but when you actually hear it, it’s unbelievable,” the post said, according to the Times. “The labor movement is in bed with City Hall.”
During one part of the recorded meeting, Martinez calls white councilman Mike Bonin “a little bitch.” De León also calls him the council’s fourth Black member and accuses him of not doing enough for Latinos.
“Mike Bonin won’t fucking ever say peep about Latinos,” he said. “He’ll never say a fucking word about us.”
He and Martinez then say Bonin treats his adopted son, who is Black, like an accessory.
“Like when Nury brings her Goyard bag or Louis Vuitton bag, el trae su accessory,” Kevin de Leon says.
“[He brings his little Black boy], like on the side,” Martinez says in Spanglish, finishing De Leon’s statement.
Martinez says that during a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday parade, Bonin brought his son but failed to keep the young boy in line, leaving it to her, fellow councilwoman Karen Bass, and the wife of councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson to discipline him.
“It’s like the oddest thing, it’s like Black and brown [people] on this float. And then there’s this white guy, with this little Black kid, who’s misbehaved,” she said. “Parece changuito,” she says, which translates to “He’s like a monkey.”
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“I’m over here trying to parent this kid, like ‘You can’t do that,’ ‘I said no.’”
“They’re raising him like a little white kid,” she goes on. “This kid needs a beatdown. Like, let me take him around the corner and then I’ll bring him back.”
During another part of the conversation, Cedillo, De León, and Martinez discuss how LA’s Koreatown fits in with redistricting. Cedillo says that the neighborhood’s name is a misnomer, as it has a sizable Latino population.
“Puro Oaxacans,” Cedillo says. “Not even like Kevin [De León], little ones.”
They first discussed the possibility of keeping that neighborhood from being drawn into progressive council member Nithya Raman’s district, because of the momentum it could give her.
“It serves us to not give her all of K-town,” Martinez said. “Because if you do, that solidifies her renters’ district and that is not a good thing for any of us. You have to keep her on the fence.”
Martinez then calls the Oaxacan Latinos who live there ugly.
“I don’t know what village they came from, how they got here,” she says through a room full of laughter. “Tan feos” (“so ugly”).
“I get what we have to do, right? Just massage to create districts that benefit you all and the future,” Herrera chimes in afterward.
Herrera then brings up having lunch with Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, and Martinez has strong words for Gascón.
“Fuck that guy,” she says. “He’s with the Blacks.”
Since the release of the tape, Martinez has stepped down from her position as council president and issued an apology.
“This has been one of the most difficult times of my life and I recognize this is entirely of my own making,” Martinez said. “I need to take a leave of absence and take some time to have an honest and heartfelt conversation with my family, my constituents, and community leaders.”
De Leon also issued an apology, saying he personally reached out to Bonin to discuss what was said on the tape.
“I fell short of the expectations we set for our leaders—and I will hold myself to a higher standard,” he said in an apology sent to a local TV news station.
Herrera also resigned Monday.
“There is no justification and no excuse for the vile remarks made in that room,” Hererra said in an apology released by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor on his behalf. “And I didn’t step up to stop them and I will have to bear the burden of that cross moving forward.”
While none of the council officials heard on the tape have resigned from their seats entirely, protestors came out in force to demand their removal. Dozens of Los Angelenos gathered outside De León’s home, calling for his resignation.
At City Hall Monday night, Oaxacan-American Los Angeles residents protested in front of the building with traditional indigenous dances and songs.
Members of the city council, and even the LAPD joined in calls for their resignations. On Sunday Bonin released a statement calling Martinez “unfit for office” and asking for her resignation.
“No child should ever be subjected to such racist, mean and dehumanizing comments, especially from a public official,” he and his life partner said in a written statement. “We are equally angry and disgusted by the ugly racist comments about our son from Kevin De León and Ron Herrera, who should also resign their posts, and by the tacit acceptance of those remarks from Gil Cedillo.”
“Anti-Blackness has no place in Los Angeles,” Gascón said in a tweet Sunday.
“We can’t have a city council where every day we go in there’s someone sitting there who called a Black child a monkey,” Councilman Harris-Dawson said during a press conference Monday.
“Racist, homophobic, and deeply cruel statements like these are disqualifying for elected office in LA,” Council member Nithya Raman tweeted. “The people who made them should resign. If they don’t, I’ll vote to remove them from Council leadership at the first opportunity.”
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