The Dutchman

Gustavo Arellano’s article trying to smear me is meaningless. I like him personally and respect most of his work, but I can not find it in me to say the same about the LA Times.

For nearly four years, the LA Times has been engaged in a smear campaign to discredit and remove from office the first true Latino sheriff in over 100 years. A sheriff that has done well to represent immigrant Asian and Latino communities, and fought hard to implement needed reforms the political class only talks about. That is what voters care about, but not what the political establishment wants from Villanueva. They want absolute loyalty. Like the loyalty Gustavo gives them.

Readers know the LA Times is acting at the behest the wealthy White liberals that represent the Los Angeles political and cultural establishment. Their power comes from their privilege. The are both beyond reproach. No se le puede decir nada. Ellos ya saben todo.

Just like wealthy white liberals, the LA Times conveniently only see race as Black and White. The rest of us are just the help. Maybe that is why they ignore us — for us, justice means more than a sign on the window or a tweet. For us, justice includes a raise — at least!

The LA Times is paired up with the privileged winners of society to prevent the rise of true leaders of color. That way they can stay in charge. To keep true working class leaders of color down, the Times and the liberal elites have weaponized identity politics to try to cancel their critics and reestablish their moral authority over the rest of us. Their playbook is simple: point in the other direction- especially at accomplished Latinas and Latinos- to preserve their power.

The failed leadership cabal of Los Angeles wants to distract from material issues, instead turning everything into a conversation about identity, tweets, pronouns, words, and feelings. They want to apologize for the past, engage in performance art to signal good intentions, and maintain their privilege and all the while keeping Maria in the kitchen or Javier in the garden. This way, the political ruling class can ignore underperforming public schools, growing poverty, failed health care scams, rampant substance abuse, pollution and poisoning of our communities, and the declining access and value of public Colleges and Universities.

Most of all, the Times ignores the biggest problem facing the Latino Community: the poverty wages and poor benefits paid to Latino workers by the Los Angeles liberal…