I spent an hour Saturday morning at Gleaners Food Bank’s new location near I-70 West and I-465 where I was confronted with the reality of Indianapolis today. I saw scores of Hoosier families – Black, white, Hispanic – lined up getting food supplies to stretch their embattled budgets.
U.S. Sen.-elect Joe Donnelly was with me. He spent the weekend touring places around Indiana like Gleaners reminding him first hand of the dire economic conditions many of Indiana’s households face.
Incomes in Indiana are slipping in the capital city and Indiana’s smaller cities and towns. The folks I saw Saturday weren’t the “poor.” They were folks who are working low wage jobs; or two or more jobs. Indiana’s political and business leaders don’t want to admit it, but the Great Recession hit Indiana hard; and eviscerated African-Americans.
Two sets of statistics were released last week that highlight the severe economic conditions many African-American Hoosiers are experiencing.
For the first time in 10 years, the Census Bureau released new detailed data on Zip Code areas.
Zip Codes aren’t just used by businesses to evaluate where to invest in new plants and shops. Increasingly, non-profits and government agencies utilize Zip Code data to determine where grants and programs should be developed.
The 2007-11 Census American Community Survey (ACS) data for Indianapolis Zip Codes reinforces what I wrote 11 weeks ago; that Indy’s Black community is evolving into two communities – one doing OK; the other economically challenged.
Take the Zip Codes that contain the highest and lowest Black median household incomes.
The highest incomes are in suburban Zip Codes: 46040 Fortville ($174,191); 46077 Zionsville ($130,667) 46143 Greenwood ($115,264), 46033 Carmel ($97,875) and 46236 on Indy’s Far Northeastside ($90,236).
The lowest incomes are in city Zip Codes: 46204 Indy’s downtown ($9,408); 46201 Near Eastside ($14,995); 46202 downtown/Near North ($16,447); 46225 Near Southside ($16,773) and a suburban Zip 46176 Shelbyville ($19,281).
High Black unemployment? Zip 46202 tops the list with 32.1 percent of Black unemployed. Next 46225 at 30.6 percent, then 46113 Camby on the far Southeastside and 46201 both at 30.5 percent; then Shelbyville at 26.1 percent.
The Zip Code data from the Census ACS documents a paradox that three-quarters of African-American adults who live downtown and within a mile of downtown live below the poverty level and over a third are unemployed. All within sight of the city’s shining buildings, stadiums and Convention Center and hotels.
I was stunned at the Black/white income gap in Zip 46204 with median household income for Blacks at $9,408; for whites $42,776. That sharp disparity is something you’d find in a Third World country; not the heart of the Midwest.
I found more Third World statistics for poverty in Indiana Black Expo’s State of Black Youth Report (SOBY) also released last week.
The Black youth poverty figures are frightening. While 38 percent of Black youth under 18 in Indianapolis/Marion County lived below the poverty level, look at these other Indiana Black communities: East Chicago 70.9 percent, Evansville 54.4 percent, Gary 56.6 percent, Terre Haute 67.1 percent, Elkhart 69.1 percent.
The Census ACS data, the Census EEO Report this column wrote about last week and IBE’s SOBY Report document the deteriorating economic conditions many African-Americans face.
Reversing the worsening economic conditions for Blacks requires sharply improving job opportunities with a living wage for Black households. It requires upgrading the education of Black workers who lost their good paying jobs in the recession.
It requires an all-hands-on-deck approach from the full spectrum of Black leadership.
In releasing their SOBY report, Expo indicated they wanted to be the catalyst to effect change. But Expo failed in that goal when they seemingly and systematically excluded Black institutions from participating in the report’s creation.
A Black-owned consulting firm, Engaging Solutions, did yeomen’s work compiling and producing the SOBY Report. Unfortunately, of the 36 individuals who served as advisors and contributors to Black Expo’s effort, none represented any African-American organizations or institutions. No NAACP, Urban League or groups that serve majority-Black youth or Black-majority neighborhoods.
How does Expo expect our Black institutions to come together under Expo’s auspices when Expo excluded them from participation in creating this vital report?
Finally, you’d think a report that, in Expo’s words, was “extensive and comprehensive” would want to maximize its impact upon our Black community.
But, IBE again showed their insensitivity towards Black media, by their incompetent distribution of the report. IBE’s PR operatives told media, in writing five days before the report’s release, that media weren’t to publish any information about the report until 2 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 4.
IBE officials didn’t send the report to me until late Monday night Dec. 3. The Indianapolis Recorder didn’t receive the report until sometime Tuesday, Dec. 4, one reason you read nothing about the report in last week’s Recorder.
Meanwhile, IBE officials gave the report well in advance to the Indianapolis Star who published details of the report 63 minutes before the supposed media release time.
If this is how the Recorder was treated, how did Expo treat the state’s other Black newspapers?
Deliberately giving white media preferential treatment on release of a critical report on our Black community is the latest example of Expo’s contempt for Hoosier Black media.
Given that Black Expo’s new board president is Greg Wilson, top aide to Mayor Greg Ballard, does this mean it is emulating Ballard’s contemptuous attitude towards Black leadership, institutions and media?
What I’m hearing
in the streets
Now that “interim” has been removed, IMPD Chief Rick Hite and his boss Public Safety Director Troy Riggs face many challenges, including a new lawsuit filed by African-American police. Twenty are suing, charging that the city’s promotion policies are and have been discriminatory for decades.
Black officers remained incensed at a promotion processed rigged against them. How Riggs and Hite handle this Gordian knot saddled on them by Ballard, will be their biggest test.
See ‘ya next week.
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