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Member-only story
Hatred Exposed
“Sorry” Does Not Cut It
The members of the LA City Council who engaged in racist rhetoric had a year to apologize. With their words made public, they must resign.
- LAUSD Candidate Dr. Rocio Rivas
There are no circumstances when it is acceptable to call a two-year-old black child a “little monkey” in a derogatory manner. There is also no excuse for joking about violently disciplining a child, especially when it comes from a former school board member. Yet, last October Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez called her colleague’s son a “changuito” (little monkey), said that the child needed “a beatdown”, and offered to do it herself. These comments were made during an “hourlong conversation” with Councilmembers Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León and Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera.
Martinez and her fellow city councilmen have had almost a year to reflect upon their words but none of them seems to have had a crisis of conscience over their involvement. Over that year not one member of the group had taken any steps to publicly condemn what was said or to apologize to those who were the subject of the racist rhetoric. Can their constituents assume that these racial diatribes were normal behind closed doors?
These elected officials were finally forced to confront their bigotry when a recording of the conversation was released to the public. With their open racism exposed they finally found contrition. Martinez claimed that the words were said “In a moment of intense frustration and anger,” as if a political disagreement would somehow excuse away her bigoted beliefs. De León released a statement that he regretted “appearing to condone and even contribute to certain insensitive comments made about a colleague and his family” without providing any explanation as to why it took the release of the audio for him to finally say something.
