When I moved to Indianapolis, the Marion County Republican Party was accepting and inclusive of African-Americans. GOP candidates went after Black votes and many times were rewarded with Black support.
Now four decades later, it seems to me the Marion County Republican Party, despite paying lip service to the importance of the Black community, has sentenced the county’s African-Americans to the back of the bus.
It was bad enough the party endorsed three African-Americans for major county-wide offices last year and then gave them no help or assistance. They then were defeated, badly, in the Democratic steamroller last November.
Now, less than two years after he stunned the city by boldly switching his affiliation from Democrat to Republican, the party’s African-American poster child Jose Evans isn’t running for re-election.
Evans’ switch was greeted with huge fanfare and visible support from the Republican National Committee and state GOP leaders. But Evans’ GOP political career may have ended with a tweet from Saturday’s Marion County Republican Slating Convention.
I attended that confab for the first time in several years. Despite what you might think, I was treated with respect and was glad to see many Republicans who I’ve worked with on numerous civic projects over the years.
I went to hear what the GOP’s “endorsed” mayor candidate Chuck Brewer would say. Deputy Mayor Olgen Williams and Jocelyn-Tandy Adande, the two more visible Republican mayor candidates didn’t go through slating. And after seeing and hearing Brewer and the response, there may be hope for Williams and Adande’s campaigns.
In his speech, he regurgitated the Ballard Administration’s talking points and recited the 31 word resume Republican political operatives have crafted for him.
But as I heard him, I felt there was something missing. It didn’t hit me just what it was until hours later.
The Republican candidate for mayor of America’s 11th largest city said nothing to elected officials and activists from his own party about the man he is. Brewer gave a 10-minute speech saying nothing about what shaped his life; what charted his journey; what brought him to consider leading Indianapolis.
The best leaders, the best politicians understand the importance of telling the story of their personal journey, their childhood, parents, upbringing, life experiences that can cause other people to bond with them; to follow them.
I’d hoped Indianapolis would learn more about Brewer last week. We invited him on our “Afternoons with Amos” program along with the other major mayoral candidates.
Last Friday, his folks begged off, no reason given. In meeting him for the first time briefly, Brewer, while cordial, didn’t make a firm commitment to talk to our African-American community.
Someone must acquaint mayoral candidate Brewer with the reality that 28.5 percent of this city/county is African-American. Brewer is the nominee of the Republican party, a party with a formerly rich legacy of reaching out early, to our African-American community.
At this stage of the campaign, cutting our Black community out from learning about and alleviating concern about this stranger in our midst leaves a bad first impression to America’s 13th largest African-American community.
What I’m Hearing in the Streets
For the record, I agree with my colleagues in media across this state and nation who roundly condemned staffers in Gov. Pence’s office who tried to create a website aggregating state agency press releases into a “news service.”
The terminology used by the folks creating this boondoggle, including former Indianapolis Star journalist Bill McCleery, was boneheaded and stupid.
Leading the outrage was the media that broke the story, the Indianapolis Star. While I share their outrage, I have to ask where’s the Star’s ire over other sins by other governmental agencies? Specifically the City of Indianapolis?
For example, the Star has not raised important questions about the proposed Indy Justice Center.
They ignored the cricket field debacle. They have never questioned why a company owned by a Turkish-American, a gentleman who is white, is considered by the City and State an Asian minority-owned business.
But it’s way past time for the Star to show the same effort and outrage over the sins of the Administration of Indianapolis/Marion County.
See ‘ya next week!
You can email Amos Brown at ac-brown@aol.com.
