BETHLEHEM, Pa. — A recent email from the Pennsylvania Democratic Party included an endorsement of Kamala Harris, a local Hispanic radio host with a history of violently racist comments.
The host is also a star of Harris campaign advertisement It is held in Philadelphia, Allentown, and Redding.
The email said Victor Martinez, owner of La Mega Radio in Allentown, a city with a large Latino population, expressed support for Harris as a candidate who would “listen.” shown.
But Martinez's own listeners will remember his fiery on-air comments in May 2021 about black tourists visiting Puerto Rico.
Speaking to the audience on the morning show El Relajo de la Mañana, Martinez claimed in Spanish that a “wave of African Americans” had flooded the island.
“When I got [on] “I got on a plane and thought I was going to Jamaica,” Martinez said, suggesting the tourists must have also thought they were going to Jamaica or New Orleans. “The plane was full of Africans.” [Americans]! ”
Martinez's rant reached thousands of people in Pennsylvania's Latino neighborhoods of Allentown, Reading and Hazleton, where she accused female tourists of “acting out” in various ways.
Martinez said the women's actions included “walking nearly naked,” “fighting with police” and “jumping.” [on] car roof”, “destroy the car roof” [hotel] I smoked marijuana in my room and drank Hennessy on the street.
“[It] It’s not a cheap vacation for them,” he continued. “Then they buy Hennessy, put it in their bag and start drinking it on the street.”
“They rent cars with sunroofs, but three or four cars have sunroofs sticking out and they don't fit,” Martinez added.
The conversation took a dark turn when Martinez's co-host Luis “Diamond Boy” Torres implied that black tourists were apes.
“The last monkey I had was Yuyo, so I should thank them,” Torres said in response to Martinez's sunroof comment, which caused the pair to burst into laughter. (Yuyo is a chimpanzee, not a monkey, who escaped from a Puerto Rican zoo in the 1980s and became a folk hero and even garnered write-in votes in elections.)
When Mr. Torres suggests that women who engage in unruly behavior are “not good-looking,” Mr. Martinez ominously replies, [have] I recorded them. ”
Torres mocked the tourists' supposed support for the Black Lives Matter movement, sparking even more raucous laughter.
“I think they've started a new protest movement called 'Black Ass Matters,'” Torres quipped.
As stated in the email, Martinez has met with many Democratic candidates. tim waltz This happened when the vice presidential candidate visited eastern Pennsylvania last month.
During the interview, Walz criticized the Trump administration's response to Hurricane Maria in 2017, claiming the former president “didn't even realize” that Puerto Ricans were actually American citizens.
Martinez also interviewed Rep. Susan Wilde, a vulnerable House Democrat from the area with a history of controversy, on his show last month.
