The neighbor complaints focused on an area of the park where southeast Asian men congregate to play games, including kick volleyball and another game known as "tuj lub" in Hmong. This game involves hurling spinning tops at a mat. The grass where the men play the game has been worn away, and is essentially a dirt court now.
The neighbors grew tired of the noise and extra cars - as many as 80 a night - and brought their complaints to the city council.
Assigned to the story, Leslie Albrecht quickly noticed the people who congregate in the area in question are exclusively southeast Asian men.
Race angle, anyone?
So Albrecht had her story angle. The blaring headline: "Applegate Uproar: Does race play a part in residents' criticism of park plan?"
After the original article ran in the Sun Star, numerous readers complained about the unnecessary race angle inserted by Albrecht. This past weekend, Leslie Albrecht responded in the Sun Star's blog for reporters. See Albrecht's lame post here.
Talk about a weasel maneuver.
First, Albrecht claims she doesn't know what a race card is. Then, she says the race angle was "obvious" - and that Gina Peters agreed.
An obvious question in my mind and in readers' minds is whether the neighbors' discomfort with the rowdy games could be motivated in part by the fact that they're played by foreigners who look different from them and don't speak English.
Instead of ignoring the issue, I asked resident Gina Peters about it. She told me that she's not concerned about who is using the park -- she's worried about what they're doing in the park. She also said she and her neighbors worry that they could be perceived as discriminating against the Southeast Asian game-players.
But looking at Gina Peters' quote, it seems what she is saying is that she worries some people might accuse her and her neighbors of having racist motives. (Well, yeah, a reporter might do that!)
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But the most damning evidence against the reporter? By her own admission, she doesn't know the racial makeup of the citizens who complained. This tidbit was tucked away in the blog:
The neighbors seem to be mostly white, although I didn't poll everyone on their ethnic background.
If a reporter is going to suggest racist motivations on the part of the citizens, at the very least she should know the racial makeup of the citizen group.
It seems to me that buying a house next to a public park is a gamble, and Peters may lose her gamble. But, for the reporter to suggest that Gina Peters and her neighbors might have racist motives -when there isn't a shred of evidence - is a cheap smear.
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