Angelenos call for resignations and reforms at town hall on racist audio leak
An audio recording released last month featuring at least one person describing incidents of violence and a lynching in California, where there’s an African American mayor, sparked days of outrage and sparked a national conversation about the importance of making sure that people of color have safe spaces in their communities. And now, at least one listener has called for the resignation of the speaker of the City Council after he spoke out about the video in the last week.
On Tuesday night, during the public comment portion of the San Jose City Council meeting, a woman identified herself as the recording’s creator, and called for the resignation of Mayor Sam Liccardo, who as a result of the recording was suspended from office.
She argued that the speaker had gone too far, and that he had given the recording the same attention as a recording of the president of the United States discussing his health care plan.
“I was surprised because as a person who believes that there’s dignity in every living human being, I was not able to believe that a person would do a recording like this. And I would still like to believe that this person would not go the extreme to say this,” the woman told the council, according to a recording of her comments.
“You can’t tell me and this mayor and this council, the people, you can’t tell me that you can’t say what you said, that you can’t make that recording, that’s not okay,” she said. “Who the hell are you going to tell to tell you what you can or cannot do? Who are you going to tell to make sure you have a safe place for people who might be offended by that recording?”
Her comments sparked a bit of heated applause as the council discussed the public comment portion of the meeting, during which one woman suggested the council suspend the