Kevin de León outlasts the news cycle

More than four months after his participation in a reviled racist conversation was revealed, he still serves on the Los Angeles City Council

Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times

Kevin de León won’t leave the show.

For those who need an introduction, De León was one of three Los Angeles City Council members who in 2021 were recorded making racist remarks while conversing about redistricting constituents within the city of 3.9 million people.

The 2021 conversation, which included Council President Nury Martinez, Councilmember Gil Cedillo and Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera, remained secret for a year before it was revealed on October 9 last year, and it was something else.

Martinez and the other Latino leaders present during the taped conversation were seemingly unaware they were being recorded as Martinez said a white councilmember handled his young Black son as though he were an “accessory” and said that Councilmember Mike Bonin’s son “parece changuito,” or is “like a monkey.”

Martinez also mocked Oaxacans and said “F— that guy … He’s with the Blacks” while speaking about Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón. …

Among other things, De León got attention for labeling Bonin’s son as a prop. Martinez took that and ran with it.

De León seemed to compare Bonin’s handling of the child to “when Nury brings her Goyard bag or the Louis Vuitton bag.”

“Su negrito, like on the side,” Martinez said, using a Spanish diminutive term for a Black person that can be considered demeaning.

Martinez suggested the child was misbehaving on the float and might have tipped over the float if she and the other women on the float hadn’t stepped in to “parent this kid.”

“They’re raising him like a little white kid,” Martinez said. “I was like, this kid needs a beatdown. Let me take him around the corner and then I’ll bring him back.”

There is reason to believe that the recording’s leaker (who has yet to be identified) was politically motivated, and that the leak was calculated to take down rivals on the council. Nevertheless, what was said was said.

The fury was immediate, and immediately led to calls for resignations. Herrera resigned from the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor the next night. Martinez, who comes off the worst on the recording, first stepped down as Council President before resigning from the Council on October 12.

Cedillo (whose district included Dodger Stadium, and who had been the most prominent Dodger supporter active on the Council), was a lame duck all along, having lost reelection bid in June. But after delaying a public decision on resigning, Cedillo ran out the clock, serving to the end of his term on December 11.

The very next day, instead of riding quietly into the sunset, he fired back.