When LA got its first black mayor in Tom Bradley several decades ago he won notably by building coalitions between black Angelenos and Jewish Angelenos and to an extent Latino Angelenos. There's this understanding that to get anything done in the city you're gonna have to build alliances but on the other hand there is this kind of fear that as Latinos grow in number in the city that political power is gonna be given specifically to Latinos just because of sheer numbers. We cannot tolerate hate speech or racism in our city. Certainly we can never tolerate at the leadership level. What's happened is completely unacceptable and those that did it need to be held accountable.
Leaked audio revealed elected officials, including City Council President Nury Martinez, making xenophobic, homophobic, and racist statements about their colleagues and constituents. The city has united in fury.
This episode was produced by Avishay Artsy and Hady Mawajdeh, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Efim Shapiro, and hosted by Noel King.
Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained
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