By Jaz McKay
Los Angeles Democrat City Council member Nury Martinez resigned from office yesterday following pressure from a coalition of Black and Latino activists and political leaders over her racist remarks during a conversation about a redistricting battle.
What did she say exactly? We’ll get to that, but it wasn’t just her. It’s also been reveled two fellow Democrat Councilmember’s, Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León used racist, homophobic comments to describe a colleague, and worse, his young son.
While the outrage over the recorded statements made by these three is understandable, one aspect being ignored is that it’s not all that uncommon. White, “MAGA” Republicans are currently the group openly accused every day of being racist, it’s a fact though that the most egregious racism in our country today almost exclusively comes from Democrat’s.
The audio was from a roughly hour-long conversation from a year ago with Martinez, Councilmember’s Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León and Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera.
(Listen to the relevant portions of the audio here)
While Martinez was the ringleader of the conversation, firing off insults and attacks, Cedillo and De León joined in with their own commentary, so Cedillo and De León should resign as well. No city with a history of interracial conflict, should tolerate leaders who harbor racist, hate-filled views toward their own citizens, that’s a no-brainer.
The discussion focused on the council members’ frustrations with maps that had been proposed by the city’s 21-member redistricting commission and how they could manipulate the lines for their own political benefit. The audio was posted on Reddit and The L.A. Times obtained a copy of the audio and then all hell broke loose.
The group was supposed to be discussing a dispute between Councilmember’s, Curren Price and Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who were at odds last year over whose district would represent USC and Exposition Park once the new maps were finalized.
Then the discussion veered from the city’s redistricting plans into some pretty vicious personal attacks on other councilmember’s as well as the citizens of L.A.
Martinez took aim at Mike Bonin, a Westside Councilmember, calling him a “little bitch,” and saying the white councilman handled his young Black son as though he were an “accessory.”
She described the 3 year old child as a “changuito,” or little monkey. Then De León chimed in, comparing Bonin’s handling of his child to carrying a Louis Vuitton handbag. Ms. Martinez even threatened to physical harm the kid, saying, “I was like, this kid needs a beat down. Let me take him around the corner and then I’ll bring him back.”
Well, so much for Ms. Martinez’s “families first” agenda.
Councilman Bonin called the comments “vile, abhorrent and utterly disgraceful” and added: “It hurts that one of our son’s earliest encounters with overt racism comes from some of the most powerful public officials in Los Angeles.”
What do you expect Mike? They’re elitist Democrats, that’s just how they roll.
Martinez also went after the Dist. Atty. George Gascón, but not for what you’d expect. Not for his liberal policies that have led to a huge increase in crime in America’s second largest city, she attacked him because she believes he’s sympathetic to the African Americans of L.A. and not the Latinos.
Say what?
“Fuck that guy,” she said, “He’s with the Blacks.”
Then while speaking of the ethnic makeup of Koreatown, which has a substantial Oaxacan community, (The Oaxacan’s are descendants of the inhabitants of what is now the state of Oaxaca, Mexico who were present before the Spanish settlers moved in around 1520) she said, “I don’t know where these people are from, I don’t know what village they came [from], how they got here,” and added “Tan feos” — “They’re ugly.” Her comments about that community also reveal a despicable bigotry against Indigenous people of Mexico. People she insists she champions.
On Tuesday, October 11th the L.A. City Council held a meeting and the public comment portion of the meeting, which went on for over two hours, demonstrates the peoples absolute outrage over what was said in that private meeting from last year.
Several hours after the news broke Sunday, Martinez issued a statement apologizing for her comments calling it “…a moment of intense frustration and anger” and that “…the context of this conversation was concern over the redistricting process and concern about the potential negative impact it might have on communities of color.”
Communities of color? You mean like the Black and Oaxacan people you disparaged in October of last year?
Wow! What a load of crap!
That apology was a joke — the same as those from De León and Cedillo. This was no moment of “frustration and anger,” it was a conversation between elitist political allies strategizing on how to hold onto power and diminish their perceived enemies. Enemies in the same Democrat Party they belong to. And I’d like to see them try to explain away the mocking, the laughing and the racist commentary. Trying to say, they were driven by concern for “communities of color” is utterly ludicrous.
Nury Martinez then issued a second apology on Monday, this time asking for forgiveness from the people she insulted. Gil Cedillo, who lost his reelection bid and leaves office in December, said in his attempt to deflect, that he “did not engage in the conversation in question,” and then acknowledging he should have intervened at the time.
In his apology, Kevin De León says, “I regret appearing to condone and even contribute to certain insensitive comments” about his colleague.
The leaked audio showed just how toxic L.A.’s Democrat Party leadership has become. They laughingly spoke with contempt of anyone who might challenge them or their power structure; they disrespected the very communities they claim to defend. Their inexcusable comments have revealed just how the Democrat Party governs, not just in California but across the country.
Martinez has resigned her position on the council, Cedillo and De León have to go as well, but remember: This is just one example of how the modern Democrat Party leadership feels about the people they serve. To them winning is all that matters, power is what drives them. They have no loyalty to their country, their community or their constituents that elected them. Their endless racist projection onto Republicans is nothing but an attempt to hide and deflect their own hatred toward those who threaten their power & control.
It’s worth noting, by the way, there isn’t one single Republican on the L.A. City Council. This isn’t someone they can deflect onto other than themselves.
And please, don’t take their apologies as contrition, they’re not sorry for the damage they’ve done, they’re not sorry for the people they insulted, they’re just sorry they got caught.
Don’t let the Democrat controlled media hide this story, share it and use it to expose the hypocrisy of the left in America today.
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