The White House demanded this Tuesday the resignation of three members of the Los Angeles City Council, involved in a conversation marked by racist comments and whose recording has caused controversy since the beginning of the week in California.
President Joe Biden “is pleased to see that one of the participants in this conversation has resigned. (…) He believes that everyone should resign”, stabbed the White House spokeswoman, Karine Jean-Pierre, during a press conference in Washington.
The presentation, which dates back almost a year, involves three elected Hispanic Democrats from the Los Angeles City Council: its president Nury Martínez, as well as two other members, Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo.
A child compared to a “little monkey”
On Monday, Nury Martínez announced that she would resign as president, without specifying whether she would resign her position on the board. In the hour-long conversation, she confronts another white council member, Mike Bonin, and accuses him of using his black son as a “prop.” She also compares the boy to a “little monkey”.
He also talks about Mexican immigrants from the state of Oaxaca, whom he finds “so ugly.”
The conversation, held in the presence of a union leader who also resigned, dealt more generally with the redesign of the Los Angeles electoral district, for which the participants wanted to preserve the political weight of the Hispanic community and sought ways to weaken that of the black community in the city.
On Tuesday, a new meeting of the city council was delayed by a demonstration in Los Angeles calling for the resignation of the three elected officials involved, according to several local media.
Source: BFM TV
