AURORA | The web address of Aurora Councilmember Steve Sundberg’s campaign website is directing people to a 2022 Aurora Sentinel story about racist trope videos he made during the pandemic.
Sundberg, whose term expires in November, alerted the Sentinel Monday to what appears to be a redirect from Sundberg4Aurora.com to a story where Sundberg acts out a variety of racist tropes as a Latino, an Indian and a Middle Eastern Muslim in a series of videos hawking his Aurora restaurant, Legends.
The Sentinel emailed Sundberg, and all city council members, Monday asking about an unrelated city council meeting matter. He responded, alleging the Sentinel was connected to the redirect and threatening to preclude any comments unless the Sentinel reacted.
“I see someone, or your newspaper, attached my former campaign address “Sundberg4aurora.com” to a disparaging selective outrage, out of context article your newspaper wrote on me,” Sundberg said in an email. “I would ask you to disassociate that article with that website. Otherwise, I will never answer a question from your newspaper again.”
It’s unclear when and how Sundberg purchased the rights to the website address, but website registry records show that Sundberg4Aurora.com was purchased by an undisclosed entity Oct. 27, 2024.
Sentinel Editor and Publisher Dave Perry said the newspaper had no part in creating the redirect and has never been contacted by anyone about the website or website address.
Repeated requests by the Sentinel to Cloudflare.com, which holds the registry to the domain name, to reveal the owner went unanswered as of Tuesday. Web technology would allow only the owner of the website to control where the web address points to.
The videos no longer appear on Sundberg’s personal or restaurant Facebook pages. The Sentinel extracted those videos at the time, and remain in the 2022 story.
The political universe is rife with stories about hijacked and misleading websites and redirections, sometimes for political gain, but also to re-sell lost website addresses for monetary gain. Numerous website address brokers negotiate contracts for purchase.
The Sentinel was tipped off about the controversial videos in 2022 and broke the story, which garnered national and international play.
At the time, Sundberg said the series of videos were intended to drive business to his restaurant, Legends of Aurora Sports Grill, during the pandemic, by performing mocking impressions of various ethnic people.
Although he later apologized for making the videos, he said they were not intended to be racist, nor did he consider them racist.
Massive backlash from regional minority community leaders disagreed, resulting in calls for his resignation from city council.
The 2022 article focused on Facebook videos of Sundberg performing stereotypical impressions of various ethnic groups in promotional skits for his business, Legends of Aurora Sports Grill.
In one video, Sundberg wears a turban and robe, exclaiming “haram” after being offered bacon. In another, he dons a Mexican blanket serving as a pancho and mimics a Mexican accent, making racist trope jokes about an employee. Other videos include Sundberg imitating Asian and German accents in skits criticized for perpetuating offensive stereotypes.
Community leaders said the videos undermined trust in Aurora, a city known for its diversity, where 21.8% of residents identify as foreign-born, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and more than a quarter of the city, 30.7%, identify as Hispanic or Latino. Around 15.8% of Aurorans are Black, 6.% are Asian, and 15.6% are two or more races.
“It’s disrespectful, and it’s insulting to our city,” said Lucy Molina, an Aurora community organizer, in the 2022 Sentinel story. “Aurora is a very multicultural city. What’s his intent, just to get people to go to his business? That’s not the right way.”
Critics also pointed to Sundberg’s record on the Aurora City Council at the time, including his role in cutting positions from the city’s Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and reducing funding for police oversight.
“If he wants to make jokes about diversity, maybe he ought to fund that office so it can do the work of educating our city and our council members that Aurora is a diverse city,” Omar Montgomery, president of the Aurora NAACP, said in the article.
Sundberg has not publicly stated whether he will run for re-election to his Ward II seat this November. No candidate in the ward has filed paperwork.
I’m not sure why he’s upset because even out of context, he says they are not racist. What’s the big deal?
I’m sure he thought these ads were innocent, but they’re not! They are only “funny” to people who view stereotypes and mocking other cultures as “funny.” It’s a decidedly insensitive and racist view, but I’m expecting that mindset from the current conservatives on the council!
…What’s his intent, just to get people to go to his business? That’s not the right way…”
That quote from a leader of a marginalized group says it all. Racist remarks are not determined to be racist by how the speaker feels about them. They are determined by how the mocked population feels about them. Racial sensitivity is not about being “work.” It’s about being sensitive to other’s feelings of acceptance in the community. I would think that should be the reason for becoming a councilperson, but that does not seem to be the motivating factor for the majority on this council.
Ummmmm… The issue is not the fault of the Sentinel. They have the link to the story in their archives and don’t have any reason or requirement to remove the article. The issue here, as this story points out, is that an unnamed entity bought Sundberg’s campaign domain name, and configured it to redirect the homepage link to the Sentinel article. I’m sure this was done as a slap in the face to the Councilman. Good luck finding the person or entity who now owns the domain name. They’re the ones to target any anger at Mr Sundberg.
The moral of the story here is that anyone who stops paying the annual subscription for a domain name, said domain becomes available for anyone else to purchase and own. If you don’t want to lose your domain name, or need to protect it from nefarious usage, you gotta keep paying for it year over year.