Councilwoman Nury Martinez requests discharge after the leak of her racist comments that caused the scandal in Los Angeles

A woman requests during a protest the resignation of those involved in the racist talk leaked to the press this Sunday.FREDERIC J. BROWN (AFP)

On Monday, there was not a weighty political voice in California that did not speak out about what has become the state's political scandal, the leaking of audio of three Latino politicians from Los Angeles County making cruel and racist comments against an African-American boy and the city's indigenous Mexican population.

From the federal senator Alex Padilla, through the governor Gavin Newsom, one of the stars of the Democrats at the national level;

the mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti and the two politicians who are fighting to relieve him in the November elections, Karen Bass and Rick Caruso.

All of them, in addition to community leaders and activists, have demanded the resignation of those involved.

This Tuesday, Councilor Nury Martinez, who made many of the controversial sayings, has requested the dismissal of the City Council.

“This has been one of the most difficult moments of my life and I admit that it is entirely my fault,” Martinez, 49, said in a statement on Tuesday.

"Right now, I need to get away to take some time and have an honest conversation with my family, my fellow citizens and community leaders," added the councilwoman, born in the United States and the daughter of Mexican immigrants.

In 2013 she became one of the most important Latino politicians in the city of Los Angeles with her victory in District Six.

This ranges from north of Hollywood to the eastern part of the San Fernando Valley.

Martinez announced on Monday that she was leaving the presidency of the council, a position she reached in January 2020, becoming the first Latina to hold it in almost two centuries of existence.

Martinez, however, was still a councilman until yesterday.

This changed this Tuesday morning, minutes before he had to publicly address his other 14 classmates at the first session of the council, including Mike Bonin, whose African-American son he called "changuito" in the conversation .

Martinez's exit increases the pressure on the rest of the interlocutors in the call, secretly recorded.

Councilmen Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo, two of the most experienced Latino politicians in California, have apologized, but have not provided clarity about their future on the City Council.

Council President Nury Martinez speaks during an event at Los Angeles City Hall in April of this year. Damian Dovarganes (AP)

The fourth participant in the conversation, Ron Herrera, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, submitted his resignation from the organization on Monday night.

Lawyers for the group tried to prevent the publication of the talk in the media over the weekend, arguing that it had been obtained illegally.

The conversation between the four characters took place in October 2021, in the midst of a moment of high political tension.

At the time, the map of the city's districts was being redrawed, which provoked an open power struggle among the councilors over the limits of the areas they represent.

What can be heard in the audio is a conversation without nuance between Latinos, who crudely decree who is with them and who they identify as their enemies, and therefore, are enemies of Latinos.

Martinez charges mainly against Mike Bonin, a white and gay progressive councilman, whom he calls a "little bitch."

The mayor assures that her colleague from the 11th district, who will leave the City Council at the end of this year, uses her two-year-old African-American son as if he were "an accessory" to attract sympathy.

"He looks like a little monkey," Martinez said at one point in the conversation, which was uploaded to Reddit by a user who was later suspended.

"His little black man, next to him," she added later without anyone censoring her comments.

De León, for example, affirms that his partner Bonin carries his son as if she were a Louis Vuitton bag.

Before moving on to another topic, Martinez criticized Bonin and her husband for raising the then-2-year-old boy “as a white boy” and suggesting that she needed a beating to correct him.

In another excerpt from the leaked audio, Martinez speaks disparagingly of Oaxacans and Central Americans who live in the densely populated downtown neighborhood of Koreatown.

"I see a lot of very short dark people," he said.

"I don't know where these people come from, what village they came from, how they got here... So ugly, they are horrible," he added.

Nearly 50% of Los Angeles residents identify as Latino.

“The comments made by the three councilors are a sad reflection of the racism that Latino and black communities face personally and institutionally,” said Janet Martínez, one of the co-founders of Indigenous Communities in Leadership (CIELO), at a conference on Monday. at the gates of City Hall.

The organization demands the resignation of the three members of the council.

Martinez has been the first to fall.

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