Riding a crowded bus and exhausted from a long day at a new job, Banks was touched when a young Latina woman gesture to Banks to take the seat next to her. The council was thrown into turmoil, Martinez resigned, and some long-overdue rumination re revising and reckoning our “tribalism” in politics has been aired, including in a thoughtful op-ed by LAT columnist Sandy Banks.īanks opens her essay with the story of a hurtful incident which happened to her many years ago. Bare bones summary of a very complicated story: someone(s) secretly recorded a behind-closed doors meeting of three Los Angeles City Council members and a local labor leader, wherein Council President Nury Martinez and other attendees slammed some of her fellow council members, gleefully made racist remarks, and spoke openly about how the city’s political districts should be carved up to advantage certain constituencies.
Y’all may remember the scandal, which broke in October and which moiself wrote about in my November 4 post.
