If the trend continues, Indianapolis could be a minority-majority city by the latter years of the next decade.
Last week, the 2012 Census population estimates for Indianapolis showed that Blacks and Hispanics continue to fuel the city-county’s growth. The Black population since 2010 grew by 8,103 or 3.1 percent to a record 268,920. The Hispanic population also set a record at 89,527, up 5,061 or 6.0 percent.
Even the Asian population soared by 10 percent, growing from 1,906 to 20,929.
The White population in the city-county grew a paltry 1,063 since 2012; a rise of 0.2 percent to 540,608.
Blacks are now 29.3 percent of Indianapolis; Hispanics 9.7 percent; Asians 2.3 percent. Add it up and minorities make up 41.2 percent of America’s 11th largest city.
In 1990, white non-Hispanics comprised 76.5 percent of the city’s population; today just 58.8 percent.
Between 1990 and 2012, the white population of Indianapolis fell by 69,572; an 11.4 percent decline. During the same period, Black city-county population rose 99,266 or 58.5 percent and Hispanic population exploded 81,077; an almost tenfold increase.
The march to Indianapolis becoming a minority-majority is inevitable. But Mayor Greg Ballard and his administration, the increasingly clueless leadership of the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce and the city’s other white powerbrokers are trying to derail the inevitability of Indianapolis becoming minority-majority.
Take Ballard and Indy leaders’ push for companies to bring “high-tech” and “high paying jobs” here. Unfortunately, those jobs rarely go to city residents or minorities.
Then there’s the mayor and business leaders’ rhetoric about improving schools, especially IPS, so more middle class families with children will move back “into the city.”
They’re not talking about making IPS more appealing to Black and Hispanic middle class families with kids who’ve abandoned IPS for charters and the townships. No, they’re strictly talking about white families.
Then take the rationale the mayor uses in promoting mass transit. That Indy’s doing it because young professionals want better mass transit and they’ll move here if we have it.
But the mayor and his minions aren’t talking about minority young professionals, who continue to struggle to find employment in Indianapolis, despite bachelor’s and post graduate degrees.
When city leaders talk about young professionals, they’re talking about those young whites occupying the apartment complexes being built downtown to house college students at IUPUI; most of whom are white.
They’re not talking about the 41.5 percent of persons 25-34 in Indy who are minority.
Instead of hoping Blacks and the Hispanic population doesn’t continue to grow. Instead of wishing whites would return en mass to Indy, our city’s white leadership needs to embrace Indianapolis’ march to minority-majority status and work to have a more inclusionary community.
What I’m hearing
in the streets
A couple of weeks ago, without fanfare, former Republican vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan visited Indianapolis. He didn’t hang out at the Columbia Club or in Carmel.
Instead Ryan, the architect of the House Republicans’ budget plan that would severely harm the poor and working poor in this country, including disproportionately African-Americans and Hispanics, visited the nearly all Black Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood to see first hand a men’s ministry of Emmanuel Missionary Baptist Church called The Men’s Connection.
This ministry involves males age 7 and up who come together in what the church describes as a “boot camp.” The men gather at 5:45 a.m. and in fellowship and small group discussions, the men are “encouraged to nurture their spiritual lives, process complex issues and fellowship.”
Ryan met with Emmanuel’s pastor, Rev. Darryl Webster and other pastors. He was accompanied on his Indianapolis visit by Robert Woodson, the pragmatic, conservative grassroots neighborhood organizer. Woodson has worked in Indianapolis neighborhoods like Martindale-Brightwood and Haughville since he was invited to Indianapolis some 20 years ago by then Mayor Steve Goldsmith.
Woodson runs the Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, which works nationally with neighborhood groups developing their self empowerment and leadership skills.
Appearing exclusively on our WTLC-AM (1310) Friday program with occasional Indianapolis Recorder contributor Abdul Hakim-Shabazz, Rev. Webster and Woodson both said Ryan’s visit to the church and the “hood” impressed Ryan.
Webster told me and listeners that Rep. Ryan said “I get it” after visiting the church and talking to the men who participated in the ministry’s efforts.
Ryan’s visit wasn’t the only manifestation of the effort by some national Republican leaders who realize that, with President Barack Obama constitutionally prohibited from running again for president, some Black votes will be up for grabs in 2016.
Some Republicans nationally and inside the party can read the demographics like I can and see that even in Indianapolis minorities are on the ascendancy, while whites aren’t.
Currently, the Republican National Committee (RNC) is undertaking a visible effort to reach out to the African-American community. This is why last week Eric Holcomb, chair of Indiana’s Republican Party, personally invited me to a “listening session” with African-Americans last Saturday.
Moderated by new Republican City-County Councilman Jose Evans, some 50 people gathered at state GOP headquarters. In front of Evans, Holcomb, Mayor Ballard and Kristal Quarker, the RNC’s National Field Director for African-American Initiatives, African-Americans shared an earful of frustrations and feedback with those GOP leaders.
It was considered a “family” meeting, so I can’t report on what was said. However, I can tell you that I’ve heard similar frustrations and feedback from Black Democrats toward the white Democratic Party leaders and elected officials.
Rep. Ryan’s Black church visit and the RNC’s “listening session” are interesting examples of Republican seeming willingness to reach out to our African-American community.
But the proof won’t be in Paul Ryan and Kristal Quarker’s words, but in their and their party’s deeds and words on offering policies and programs that will materially improve African-Americans lives. Not just talking points.
See ‘ya next week.
You can email comments to Amos Brown at acbrown@aol.com.
