AURORA, Colo. — A white city councilman is rebuffing calls to resign for using racial and religious stereotypes to portray Muslim, Latino, Black and Asian people on videos intended to promote his sports bar.
Steve Sundberg posted the videos to the Facebook page of Legends of Aurora Sports Grill in 2020, but they only caught the attention of leaders and advocacy groups in December.
Sundberg has since apologized and removed the videos, saying they were an attempt at humor during the darkest days of the pandemic, but he continues to draw outrage from constituents, other council members and elected statewide leaders who are all demanding his resignation.
The situation is reminiscent of last year’s racism scandal in Los Angeles where a recording surfaced of three Latino council members and a Latino labor leader making crude, bigoted comments about Black people.
One of the three, former Council President Nury Martinez, resigned shortly after the recording became public. But the other two, Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León, resisted widespread calls to step down, including from President Joe Biden. Cedillo’s term ended in December, but de León is still on the council.
Sundberg, who made more than a dozen videos before he was elected in 2021, is shown in one wearing traditional Muslim clothing and a turban while sitting on a prayer mat, reading reviews of his restaurant aloud in a Middle Eastern accent.
“Hey, it’s Steve Syeed from Legends. My job is respond Google and Yelp review,” he said, intentionally butchering the language.
When an employee approaches and asks if he wants bacon, the councilman grabs a scimitar and appears to repeatedly yell out “harman,” an Arabic word meaning that something is forbidden for Muslims to consume, use or do.
In another video, Sundberg pretends to be a man named Victor, a Spanish translator wearing a poncho and promoting the day’s menu special — a beef or chicken enchilada plate with cheese and onions — in broken Spanish…
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