Cross-cultural coalitions have ruled Los Angeles politics for decades, helping elect both Black and Latino politicians to top leadership roles in the huge racially and ethnically diverse city.
the following year when three of the officers were acquitted on excessive force charges and the jury failed to reach a verdict on the fourth. The rioting lasted six days and killed 63 people, underscoring racial tensions in the city, especially between the Black community and Korean Americans, whose businesses were often targeted.
“The kind of sentiments expressed in that conversation do exist in the Latino community more broadly,” Pastor said of the racist comments on the recording. But he said most Hispanics in the city reject that way of thinking. Martinez referred to Bonin, who is gay, as a “little bitch" and De León called Bonin the council’s “fourth Black member.”
The pastor, among those who sat last year on the Los Angeles City Council Redistricting Commission that helped draw the map, noted the recorded conversation was just weeks before final approval. “At a time when our nation is grappling with a recent rise in hate speech and hate crimes, these comments have deepened the pain that our communities have endured,” said Sen. Alex Padilla, who earlier served as the council’s youngest president.
Tanya Kateri Hernandez, professor at Fordham University School of Law, said the idea that people of color are always united ignores colonialism and racial baggage from many different places and generations.