NYT: L.A. Officials’ Racist Comments Exemplify ‘Lite Supremacy’

White supremacy in America is “not confined to white people or to Republicans” and may be replaced with “lite supremacy,” whereby “fairer-skin people perpetuate a modified anti-Blackness,” according to a recent New York Times op-ed that warned while the country is “getting less white,” it is not necessarily “becoming less racist.”

The essay, titled “A Revealing Racist Rant in L.A.” and penned by left-wing opinion columnist Charles M. Blow, begins by submitting the author’s unsettling theory about America’s future.

“It is a theory… that with the browning of America, white supremacy could simply be replaced by — or buffeted by — a form of ‘lite’ supremacy, in which fairer-skin people perpetuate a modified anti-Blackness rather than eliminating it,” he wrote.

As the U.S. becomes less white, white supremacy could simply be replaced by — or buffeted by — a form of “lite” supremacy, in which fairer-skin people perpetuate a modified anti-Blackness rather than eliminating it, writes @CharlesMBlow. https://t.co/bkhSuPL6Hu

— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) October 16, 2022

According to Blow, the recent leaking of recordings of racist comments made by Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez and other Latino leaders behind closed doors “did nothing” to allay such fears.

“She insulted people in the crudest, most racially offensive ways, comparing a colleague’s Black son to a monkey and appearing to insult Oaxacans — people from the disproportionately Indigenous Oaxaca region of Mexico — by calling them ‘little short dark people’ who are ‘ugly,’” the MSNBC political analyst wrote.

Additionally, he noted that the recording reveals Martinez discussing Jews, who “cut their deal with South L.A.,” while dismissing an official by stating, “he’s with the blacks.”

Blow maintains that “the racial, ethnic tribalism” of Martinez’s “political calculations” were the most disturbing aspect of the incident, being that the comments were made in a rare discussion over the city’s redistricting process. 

“This is a meeting about power, about who can be helped — or hurt — by how districts are drawn,” Blow wrote.

The author also claims the problem posed by the comments is that “the people on the call seem to see power among the city’s constituents as a zero-sum game, and in that game, they openly disparaged other groups because of their identities.”

“Instead of allying with other disadvantaged groups, they diminished them,” he added. “Their discussion was anti-Black, anti-Indigenous, anti-Jewish.”

Accusing the Latino officials of “doing the work of white supremacy,” Blow argues that “intra-minority racism is complex in some ways, but simple in others.”

“Racism is perpetuated by those who benefit from it,” he writes. “Anti-Black racism benefits those whose appearances are least Black.”

“White supremacy benefits those who are white, or those [who] are white-adjacent in both appearance, culture and affect,” he added.

Blow then expressed his hope that “we were destined for the idealized future that some activists long for: an America that, as it becomes less white, also becomes less racist and more racially egalitarian and accepting.”

However, the left-wing columnist claims such a “hopeful future” is not guaranteed “because some of the allyship we experience is performative.” 

He then accused Martinez of supporting an end to racism “in public” — after she expressed support for defunding the police in the wake of the 2020 George Floyd riots — while perpetuating it “in private.”

Blow insists that “anti-Black white supremacy is not confined to white people or to Republicans, even though they court it and coddle it,” noting that Martinez is a Democrat in an overwhelmingly Democratic locale.

He also deems it a “fallacy” to believe “every person in every community that has been oppressed by white supremacy will reject it.” 

“That’s simply not true, for some see oppression as having a perch: You must be elevated to perform it,” he writes. “In that way, being in a position to oppress becomes aspirational; being anti-Black — and being able to skirt most anti-Blackness — becomes a sorting device.”

Blow concludes by describing such oppression as both “an achievement” and “most American.”

On Tuesday, Blow claimed being concerned about a Great Replacement Theory was supporting the notion that America should be majority white which is the “definition of racism.”

In August, he wrote an essay mourning the apparent “death” of the “defund the police” movement, regretting it had not “caught on broadly enough,” and warning Americans will yet “regret” rejecting it.

The signal we are sending to all the people who truly believed that there would finally be real change in policing is that racial equity is a tertiary issue, writes @CharlesMBlow. https://t.co/d8qXB8Btic

— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) September 1, 2022

In May, Blow accused Republicans of making the United States a “killing field” through their promotion of propaganda and an “insane” gun culture, while claiming the extraordinary levels of “American carnage” are due to the amount of “American Republicans” within the country.

Blow’s recent essay comes after a leaked recording of racist comments by city officials in Los Angeles appeared to expose the growing tensions over political power between the Latino and black communities.

City council members who participated in the recently-leaked offensive discussion, which took place last October, also disparaged Jews and Armenians in the course of the exchange, with one participant saying the Jews “are gonna screw everybody else.”

As Breitbart News noted, angry residents stormed Tuesday’s council meeting, where outgoing member Mike Bonin, whose adopted black child was the target of several racist remarks on the audio recording, gave an emotional speech calling on participants to resign.

Martinez, the main speaker, resigned her position as president of the City Council in response, and resigned her seat Wednesday. 

Council members Gil Cedillo and Kevin de Léon also participated; the latter was the first Latino president of the State Senate. Another participant, Ron Herrera of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, resigned his post.

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden called on all three members of the City Council to resign over their reported bigoted remarks.