Fallout continues from racist remarks at Los Angeles City Council meeting

By Darren Lyn

HOUSTON, United States (AA) - Two members of the Los Angeles City Council were stripped of their committee seats after they were recorded having a racist conversation disparaging Black, Hispanic and Indigenous people.

Kevin de Leon and Gil Cedillo were removed from their committees on real estate development, housing and homelessness as part of the fallout from the comments caught on tape during an Oct. 2021 conversation.

Acting Los Angeles City Council President Mitch O’Farrell made the announcement late Monday in the wake of now-former council President Nury Martinez’s resignation last week and forfeiting her seat.

Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera had also resigned from his position after the audio was leaked involving all four.

Martinez criticized another colleague, Councilor Mike Bonin, who is White, for parenting his Black son in the recording, calling the boy "ese changuito," which in Spanish means "that little monkey."

"They're raising him like a little White kid," Martinez said on the recording. "I was like, 'This kid needs a beatdown. Let me take him around the corner, and then I'll bring him back."'

De Leon chimed in, comparing Bonin’s handling of the toddler to "when Nury brings her little yard bag or the Louis Vuitton bag." "Su negrito (translates to “little black” in Spanish), like on the side," he added.

Martinez also took a swipe at LA County District Attorney George Gascon saying, "He's with the Blacks."

Martinez also called Indigenous immigrants from the Mexican state of Oaxaca “tan feos,” or “so ugly" and referred to Oaxacans as "little, short dark people.''

Protests have erupted in the Hispanic and Indigenous communities demanding that de Leon and Cedillo resign.

Black Lives Matter groups have also staged protests against de Leon and Martinez and are demanding that Martinez be replaced by one of the Council's Black members.

President Joe Biden also called for the resignation of all involved with the White House referring to the racist remarks as "unacceptable" and "appalling."

A leadership vote is scheduled Tuesday to determine who will take over as council president.