Way back in 2021, a few Los Angeles City Council members came under fire for a leaked conversation with racist jokes and schemes to maintain Latino political power in redistricting. One of the callers was former Councilman Gil Cedillo. After over a year, he finally spoke out.
In an interview with Telemundo Noticias, Cedillo insisted that he didn’t participate in any racist banter on the phone call, which included former council president Nury Martinez, colleague Kevin de León and head of Los Angeles County Federation of Labor Ron Herrera.
“I didn’t say anything racist. How can you say I was part of a racist conversation? Where’s the racism? Where’s the N-word? There’s no racism,” Cedillo told Telemundo.
The bulk of the racist spout, published by The Los Angeles Times, came from Martinez as she called Councilman Mike Bonin’s Black son a “changuito” which means monkey. However, Cedillo made his own jabs too, per the recording. As Martinez went on her tangent about Bonin and his son, Cedillo slid in and said, “His kid, the one he adopted.” He also agreed with Martinez’s comment that the boy “needed a beatdown.”
He also (and quite earnestly) participated in the conversation related to taking over the council seats to retain Latino power.
Read from LA Times’ transcript of the call:
We have a Mexican in charge of the council. We have more members on the council. We’re in a different spot now than we were 25 years ago. The thing for us is to exercise our power.
To get together, like we are, exercising our power. You’re right, there’s three seats. If you figure out the Valley, the seats on this corridor, historic African American, which I could support one. Maybe two. But those are Latino seats. Yeah, get Fernando Guerra in here, there’s 57 out of 60 seats that African Americans are in, are Latino seats.
In another piece of the Times’ transcript, Herrera said if 50 percent of voters are Mexican, he’d be confident in beating a Black candidate. Cedillo buds in and says, “Twenty-five are for Black and the 25 Blacks are shouting,” to which de León says they “shout like they’re 250.”
“If there are people who have been offended, I want to say I’m sorry. But really, these conversations were like every conversation that exists daily between people. I’m not the police to cut off every conversation that’s not right,” Cedillo told Telemundo.
Isn’t that the issue? Cedillo may not have been throwing slurs and nasty language like the others. Though, the problem is that he was part of a racist conversation and appeared compliant with their exchange. That’s probably why he lost his reelection bid in 2022.