Los Angeles City Council president resigns from leadership role after audio leaked of her racist remarks

CNN — Los Angeles City Council member Nury Martinez has resigned as the legislative body’s president after making racist remarks about a fellow council member and his Black child. In clips of the leaked audio posted by the Times, Martinez is heard recounting a conversation and says “Bonin thinks he’s f**king Black.” According to the Times, Martinez says Bonin appeared with his son on a float in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade and he “handled his young Black son as though he were an accessory.” The boy is 8 years old, according to a Facebook post by his father. pic.twitter.com/0fPPXwsS5B — Mike Bonin October 9, 2022 Bonin and Arian added that they are “equally angry and disgusted by the ugly racist comments about our son from Kevin de León and Ron Herrera, who should also resign their posts, and by the tacit acceptance of those remarks from Gil Cedillo.” The California/Hawaii State Conference of the NAACP and the Los Angeles Branch of the organization are calling for the resignation of all council members involved in that conversation and asking the city to investigate “how far the racial animus has impacted hiring and other decisions of the City Council,” they said in a joint statement. “The conversation revealed several layers of contempt for the people of Los Angeles, and a cynical, ugly desire to divide the City rather than serve it,” Bonin and Arian said in their statement.