Use altercation as a bridge to dialogue

It's difficult, in many ways, to know what to make of the verbal altercation Carpentersville Trustee Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski had over the weekend with her neighbors.

One of the few things that seem quite certain is that Ramirez-Sliwinski was issued a ticket for disorderly conduct after she told her neighbor's tree-climbing children to "quit playing in the tree like monkeys."

That, and the fact that the neighbor children are black and Ramirez-Sliwinski is not.

The children's parents say the remark was meant as a racial slur. And they've vowed to involve the Rainbow PUSH Coalition if Ramirez-Sliwinski contests the disorderly conduct ticket.

Ramirez-Sliwinski, meanwhile, says she meant nothing derogatory by the expression, that it's the kind of thing people often call children and that she intended no racial implication by the words.

It also seems apparent that she and her neighbors have been at odds repeatedly over the years.

Beyond that, what do we know? Only that this altercation and the response to it has mushroomed way beyond reasonable proportions.

Certainly, one matter that calls out for explanation is the ticket issued against her. What happened in the Saturday encounter that would justify a citation for disorderly conduct? On the surface, yelling for children to get out of a tree wouldn't seem to merit the charge. Did something else take place? If so, police ought to reveal it. If not, we question the judgment involved.

The heart of the matter is the charge of racial overtones in a suburb widely perceived, fairly or not, as a home to all kinds of ethnic prejudices.

Was Ramirez-Sliwinski's remark intended to carry racial overtones? Who in the end can know? We've haven't seen, in our coverage of her as a village trustee, anything to indicate a prejudice on her part toward blacks. And her support of black presidential candidate Barack Obama seems to contradict the claim.

At the same time, it's understandable that the family on the receiving end of the comment may have heard it as prejudicial, especially if it was said in the heat of anger.

Could it be, in the end, a case of two cultures that genuinely hear one expression with two different sets of ears?

At the moment, this is a heated controversy. But it offers the opportunity for growth and understanding.

Rather than ending in a destructive divide exacerbated by political correctness, we hope Ramirez-Sliwinski and the community use it as the beginning of a constructive dialogue on race, sensitivity and perspective.

If it succeeds at that, a nasty neighborhood dispute actually could end in some greater good.