The former president of the Los Angeles City Council, Democrat Nury Martínez, said that the black adopted son of the also progressive mayor Mike Bonin seemed like "a monkey", a little monkey, and "deserved a beating" for his unruly behavior. Martinez called the Oaxacans and Central Americans who live in the Koreatown neighborhood "short, dark-haired men," "ugly and horrible," "short and dark people"... And all this despite being the daughter of Mexican immigrants.
The one who came to be number two of the City Council behind Mayor Eric Garcetti said that, and much more, during a conversation with fellow Hispanic councilors Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo and with the leader of the influential Los Angeles County Labor Federation Ron Herrera. None of these three interlocutors objected to the racist speech of the president, who had been in office since 2013.
The theme of the meeting was the redesign of municipal districts, in which the distribution of representatives among the different communities of the second largest metropolis in the United States, after New York, was at stake. Half of the population of the Californian capital is now Latino, but their representatives occupy only a third of the 15 seats on the municipal council. What aired in Martínez's appointment with his companions was the struggle for power.
The talk was secretly recorded and on Sunday it came to light. Martínez left the post of president on Monday, and Herrera that of union leader. She also resigned yesterday as councilor after some resistance. But even Joe Biden had asked him. “Everyone has to go. The language that was used and tolerated during that conversation was unacceptable and appalling," Trump said through White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. The councilors De León and Cedillo resisted until Wednesday to follow in the footsteps of their colleagues and go home.
Martínez, who also attacked Mike Bonin for his homosexuality and called him "little bitch", accompanied his resignation with a long statement in which he expressed his shame and said he was "heartbroken".
Mayor Garcetti immediately pointed out the advisability of the three council members resigning. And the governor of California and Democratic Party promise, Gavin Newson, said that comments like those that had been poured and consented to in the recorded conversation "have no place in our state or in our politics."
The spread of the talk caused strong citizen protests and the interruption of a session of the consistory last Tuesday, between shouts of "Out, out."
But, above all, the publication highlighted the tensions between the Latino and black communities in the city, and the difficulty in maintaining the understanding that both had been forcing in fits and starts for thirty years. That alliance of African-Americans and Hispanics, resentful of the rapid growth of the Latino population and the consequent aspirations of its leaders to increase representation at the expense of the rest of the groups, is now especially in danger.
The crisis adds to a succession of corruption scandals that culminated last summer in the jailing of former councilor Mitchell Englander for taking bribes from a businessman: a case involving other councilors who are on trial.
In addition, the head of the city's Department of Water and Power, David Wright, pleaded guilty to bribery and was sentenced to six years in prison. And right now Mayor Garcetti's nomination to be ambassador to India is on hold due to criticism of his handling of sexual misconduct allegations against one of his advisers.
Consequently, public confidence in the city government is at a low. "It seems as if the city is falling apart," declared former mayor Antonio Villaraigosa after the recording between Martínez and his colleagues was published. "There's always been quite a bit of skepticism and even cynicism about government and political leaders, but I think now, with everything that's going on, people really feel that City Hall is not working on their behalf," he added.
