"People acted like ghetto thugs:" Bay View woman receives hateful letter after hosting baby gender reveal party
BAY VIEW -- An anonymous letter and a derogatory term. Now a Bay View woman says she's no longer comfortable in her neighborhood.
Tatiana Hill reads aloud a letter left outside her Bay View home on June 5th.
"Dear neighbor, yesterday you hosted a party and some of the people acted like ghetto thugs," Hill reads.
The party that letter refers to was a gender reveal for Hill's first baby -- it's a girl!
"My boyfriend and I wanted to celebrate with our family to find out what we are having," said Hill.
Hill says there was no drinking, smoking or loud music. Still, the letter lays out the neighbors' complaints about her guests.
"They sat at the end of your driveway, blocked the sidewalk for hours, they had several cars on the street blocking traffic and frightening passers by," the letter says.
The letter's author says it has nothing to do with race.
"We are concerned because we do not want the violence that follows ghetto people. Please do no invite this group to come back. Sincerely, concerned neighbors," the letter says.
Hill says it's hard to believe it's not about race.
Tatiana Hill and Vabessa Vararamos
"Look at my skin color. That's exactly what this means," said Hill.
Hill has lived in Bay View 15 years, now she says she's uncomfortable on her own street.
"If they had a problem with something, they should have been an adult and come to us," said Vabessa Vararamos, Hill's mother.
Hill's mother went door to door trying to find the author.
Tatiana Hill
"The couple neighbors I did talk with, they expressed that this was unacceptable," said Vararamos.
Their alderman, Tony Zielinski, agrees.
"I'm really shocked and dismayed to hear the contents of that letter. That is not the feeling of the overwhelming majority of people in our very diverse neighborhood," said Alderman Zielinski.
"It made me feel like I was the victim of racism and all I'm doing is trying to celebrate my first child," said Hill.
Hill says there were people of all races at her party.
Milwaukee police say they were not called to Hill's home on June 5th -- or any other time this year.