Granted, this is just poor dumb Charles Blow in the New York Times, but…
But what disturbs me most is the racial, ethnic tribalism of her political calculations. After all, the recording is of a meeting to discuss the city’s once-in-a-decade redistricting process. This is a meeting about power, about who can be helped—or hurt—by how districts are drawn.
On the recording, when the former Los Angeles County Federation of Labor president, Ron Herrera, says, “I’m sure Katz and his crew have an agenda,” referring to the former State Assembly member Richard Katz, who is Jewish, Martinez responds that the Jews “cut their deal with South L.A.”
An extremely stylized version of city of Los Angeles political demographics is that “South L.A.” means black, West L.A. means Jewish (or “Jewish” means West L.A.), “North L.A.” means white (although often Jewish), and “East L.A.” means Latino. (I’m not saying this is geographically demographically accurate, but it’s helpful shorthand.)
Since 1973, when West L.A. backed Tom Bradley as a tractable moderate black, West L.A. and South L.A. usually make a deal.
But not always. In 2001, West L.A. backed East L.A.’s Anthony Villaraigosa, so North L.A. and South L.A. teamed up to elect James Hahn. That briefly looked promising, but then the North-South alliance broke up when Hahn made the best decision of his one term: to not reappoint the black LAPD chief, but to instead hire America’s top cop, Bill Bratton, who performed his usual political magic and did a lot of good to fix a seemingly intractable situation.
But South L.A. revolted against Hahn, so Villaraigosa got two (often embarrassing) terms. Then West L.A. chose one of their own, Eric Garcetti, to at least look like a proper mayor. Now South L.A. thinks it has a winner in Karen Bass.
Even more directly, Martinez dismisses one official by saying, “[expletive] that guy… He’s with the Blacks.”
Of course, to be nice to black criminals is why George Soros funded George Gascon’s campaign against the anti-criminal L.A. County DA Jackie Coakley, a black lady.
To be clear, I believe in representative distribution of political power. Los Angeles is nearly half Latino. There should be strong, unapologetic Latino political power in that city. In fact, underrepresentation is a problem that continues to plague the Latino community.
That imbalance must be remedied.
Which would be partly at the expense of Los Angeles’ black community, who still have their traditional 20% of city council seats despite being down to less than 9% of the population.
The problem this recording poses is that the people on the call seem to see power among the city’s constituents as a zero-sum game
It kinda is.
It looks like the city council members of Los Angeles are:
6 whites
2 gays (1 Jewish, 1 a guy with an Irish name who claims to be Native American)
2 Jews
1 Armenian
1 Italian
4 Hispanics
3 blacks
2 Asians
1 Korean (the only non-Democrat)
1 Indian
It looks like the most overrepresented constituencies are the gay Jews (Mike Bonin) followed by blacks. The most underrepresented are the straight WASPs,
, and in that game, they openly disparaged other groups because of their identities.
Instead of allying with other disadvantaged groups
...to dispossess whites.
Keep your eyes on the prize, people! Los Angeles real estate is worth a lot of money. Equity means we take their equity.
, they diminished them. Their discussion was anti-Black, anti-Indigenous, anti-Jewish.
Is there any Dalit community in Uttar Pradesh more disadvantaged than Los Angeles Jews?
They were doing the work of white supremacy.
As Hakan Rothmwrt pointed out:
White supremacy is the normative ideology and dominant ethos of dozens of nations, particularly in Latin America. It will dominate public opinion, popular culture, domestic policy, & foreign interventions of the coming Hispanicized USA.
On the other hand, saying that would fry the brains of NYT subscribers. It’s simpler to stick to the idea that white people are always the ones to blame.
