First of all, can someone explain to me the origin of the phrase "race card"? I checked in with my favorite unreliable reference, Wikipedia, and couldn't find a good answer.
According to some readers, the Sun-Star "played the race card" recently when we ran a story about a controversy at Applegate Park.
The story (by me) was about a group of residents on W. 26th Street who are fed up with the noise and cars that accompany daily games of volleyball, top spin and kator (kick volleyball) at the park.
The games are played exclusively by Southeast Asian men. The neighbors seem to be mostly white, although I didn't poll everyone on their ethnic background.
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.
I thought those were valid points and I included them both in the story. The graf was far down in the article, appearing after I listed the neighbors' concerns about noise, traffic, torn up turf and illegal gambling.
But when the story ran the next day, the headline said, "Does race play a part in residents' criticism of park plan?"
This didn't sit well with some readers. In online comments, readers said I was practicing "bad journalism," that I should be ashamed of myself and that I lack integrity.
(It always amuses me that the people who write the nastiest comments about us reporters on the Sun-Star's Web site are the ones who don't post their real names with their comments. Some day I'd like to sit down with "DancingQueen" and "Reflections" so we can talk about all the ways I have failed as a reporter.)
I also got an e-mail from one of the neighbors (he included his name).
He wrote: "I just want you to know that my complaints about the city's proposed plans are based on the effects of overuse of this area of the park, and not on race. Actually, the tuj lub game is very cool, but the concentrated use is destroying the turf in an area of the park which, without question, was designed for beauty, picknicking and an occasional volleyball, badminton, kick volleyball or wiffle ball game. The turf is being destroyed, and with it, the beauty of this part of the park....Anyway, this is a tough issue, and I don't think the headline about race is going to help the neighbors and the user group resolve it together."
I responded to him the same way I responded to an elected official who told me he thought the Sun-Star had done a "disservice" by "throwing out the race card."
I wrote:
"As at most newspapers, the reporters here at the Sun-Star don't write the headlines. The Copy Desk writes the headline after the story has been filed, usually after the reporter has gone home for the day. We read them when you read them.
I think race is one dimension to this story. But there are other facets to it as well, such as, what is considered "normal use" in a public park, how much say should neighbors have in the park's future, etc. If you read my entire story, you will see that I attempted to address all of the issues and questions in a fair way. The story is not only about race. But not mentioning race at all would be ignoring an obvious question on readers' minds."
As our Copy Desk Chief Jesse Chenault pointed out to me, all the headline did was raise the question of race. Apparently that was too much for some people.
But I'll also mention this: the one person who called to thank me for writing the story was someone who's not white. He was most definitely not concerned that the Sun-Star had played the "race card."