You know the saying “All Black people look alike.” Well, when it comes to the Black and white community’s perception of Black ministers, even though there are differences, to the community they all seem alike.
It doesn’t help that the community’s perception of Black ministers comes from mainstream TV media, whose understanding of Black ministers and the Black church is superficial at best and dangerously ignorant and intolerant at worst.
On Nov. 17, the Baptist Ministers Alliance sponsored a second visit by Rev. Al Sharpton in its campaign to bring justice to the Indianapolis Metro Police Department.
Also, on that day, the Ten Point Coalition sponsored an interfaith meeting of white and Black clergy with Mayor Greg Ballard and public safety officials, including the Fraternal Order of Police.
Rev. Al Sharpton’s visit and announcement that he’ll open a National Action Network chapter here to continue the pressure to improve and reform the police should be welcomed by all Black clergy groups and our community. If Sharpton follows up, it will have the effect of spotlighting Indianapolis’ ills before the national stage. Something that has not happened before. And something the city’s power brokers don’t want to see.
The Baptist Ministers Alliance, the Black ministerial group formed in the late 19th century, was born from the bosom of the Black community. So were Indianapolis’ other Black ministerial associations that are arrayed along denominational and interdenominational lines.
The Concerned Clergy, an amalgam of clergy, political, business and civic leaders, was born from our community’s heart in the early 1960s.
All these Black clergy groups are locally born and based.
Compared to Indy’s other Black clergy groups, the Ten Point Coalition is relatively new and was the product of outsiders. It was brought to Indianapolis, from Boston, by then Mayor Steve Goldsmith around 1995.
Concerned about the then rising level of street violence, Goldsmith invited Ten Point’s founder, Rev. Eugene Rivers, here. Assisted by Goldsmith’s faith based office called the Front Porch Alliance, Rivers created an Indy affiliate of his Boston success. Indy’s Ten Point was to replicate Rivers’ Boston model, which according to the Boston mothership’s website, “works to mobilize the community around issues affecting Black and Latino youth” by “working with troubled youth and the revitalization of families and communities where our youth are raised.”
In the 1990s, Rev. Rivers’ Ten Point Coalition was the hot example for cities engaging faith-based partners to reduce youth violence.
But today, it seems the Ten Point Coalition has fallen on hard times. An Internet search and a search of Guidestar.org, the national database of non-profit organizations, shows only four Ten Point chapters – in Boston, Memphis, Tulsa and Indy. Only Indy has filed a current non-profit IRS Form 990 tax return, according to Guidestar, which reports that revenues for each of the four chapters fall in the very low six figures.
Rev. Rivers, the Ten Point national founder, is involved in a National Ten Point Coalition Foundation, but Internet information on the group is sketchy and no current IRS Form 990 is on file, according to Guidestar.
The events of last week make it seem that Indy’s Ten Point Coalition is veering from its core mission of mobilizing the community on issues affecting youth to get involved in being a mediator and moderator between the city and its police force.
While some in our community point fingers and question Ten Point’s motives, the real finger needs to be pointed at Mayor Greg Ballard. His failure of leadership in the police crisis created the vacuum Ten Point has filled.
If mediation from clergy was needed, why didn’t the mayor reach out to the Church Federation of Greater Indianapolis for assistance? A coalition of Christian denominations, the Church Federation has helped Indianapolis mayors deal with past crises involving police, social justice and human rights.
I’m dumbfounded that our mayor hasn’t engaged his Greater Indianapolis Progress Committee (GIPC). Ever since Mayor John Barton founded GIPC 45 years ago, it’s been used by Indianapolis mayors to deal with major community issues and crises. But under Mayor Ballard’s malpractice, GIPC has been allowed to atrophy and wither on the vine; uninvolved and disengaged from major community crisis like the IMPD mess.
It should not be the Ten Point Coalition’s job to “mediate” between the city and the Fraternal Order of Police. If the mayor needed clergy mediators, that is why we have a Church Federation. If the mayor needed leadership on this issue from civic and religious leaders, he should have engaged GIPC.
What I’m hearing
in the streets
He’s been condemned by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and scores of Indiana Democratic Party activists and many in our African-American community. But during an exclusive interview last week on WTLC-AM (1310’s) “Afternoons with Amos,” Sen. Evan Bayh, in strong, yet melancholy terms, defended his 12 years in the Senate and his decision not to run for re-election. A decision that many Democrats blame for their disastrous showing outside of Marion County this year.
Bayh expressed pride in his voting record and push for causes dear to Democrats. And he strongly derided suggestions that if he’d run this year, Democrats would’ve avoided their election debacle.
“I would have won,” said Bayh, “but the overall outcome would still have been the same.”
And is Bayh running for governor in 2012? I got no clue from his interview and I’m not sure he knows his intentions either.
City-County Councilman Paul Bateman stabbed our African-American community and our city in the back with his ill-considered, selfish vote in favor of the abysmal parking meter deal.
Council Republicans did not have the votes to approve the mayor and GOP council’s harebrained scheme. But they got the vote and their plan approved because of Bateman, the only Democrat to vote in favor.
A brave Republican, Christine Scales, joined Libertarian Ed Coleman and the remaining 12 council Democrats in almost stopping the deal.
Seems Councilman Bateman was bamboozled into thinking the mayor’s plan would benefit a Black-owned business, even though a majority owned business, ACS, would call all the shots and make most of the cash.
Democrats in Bateman’s Eastside district are livid over his betrayal. Former council member Steve Talley, whom Bateman succeeded, is ramping up to run. Expect the party to dump Bateman at slating and, if he runs, for him to lose in the May primary.
See ‘ya next week!
You can e-mail comments to Amos Brown at ACBrown@aol.com.
