On his 117th day in
office, President Barack Obama came to Indianapolis. That is the
earliest any President has come to Indianapolis in his first
term.
I was part of the
“press pool” for the president’s brief Indianapolis visit. A press
pool is a small group of media who are allowed to see a president’s
remarks to a group and report on them to all media.
Along with an
Indianapolis Star reporter, I was the only other Indianapolis media
and the only one from any Black media participating in the press
pool.
Some 600 persons
attended two fundraisers. Some 40 persons paid $15,000 a couple for
a small meet and greet with the president. While some 600 paid
upwards of $250 to several thousand at a fundraiser benefiting
Congressman Andre Carson and three other Hoosier Democratic
congressmen.
One thing about the
media covering presidents. We aren’t treated in the lap of luxury.
While guests at the Westin ate the house salad, the house Honey
Chicken Breast, some champagne and cheesecake, those of us in the
press pool were treated to soft drinks, nuts, crackers and
cheese.
There were plenty of
African-American professionals and elected officials at the two
fundraisers. One side note, several of the individuals rumored to
be running for mayor in 2011 were there, including City-County
Councilman Jose Evans, Dr. Woody Myers, former prosecutor candidate
Melina Kennedy and former Secretary of State Joe Hoggsett. There
may have been others, but I didn’t see them.
The strong statement
of support by President Obama for the efforts by local hotel
workers to organize cheered them and poses a sharp warning for
civic leaders.
First, the
president’s statement gives momentum to the effort that major
Indianapolis hotels should allow their workers to unionize. And
with Mayor Greg Ballard and other civic leaders gearing up to ram
tax increases down our community’s throat to save the CIB, under
the guise of “protecting” 60,000 hospitality jobs, most of them
non-union, the issue of why working class taxpayers should pay to
keep Indianapolis hospitality workers in a non-union slave shop
condition, makes no sense.
Oh, a word about how
the president looked. Great. Relaxed. In good spirits. On message
and firing up local Democrats.
With 1,344 days left
in the first Obama term, this won’t be the president’s last visit
here. Though he won’t stay overnight in non-union
hotels.
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What I’m
Hearing
in The
Streets
Somebody tell Mayor
Ballard that the number of African-Americans in Indianapolis and
the metro area continues to grow. The city/county’s now 27 percent
Black, with the Census estimating 237,544 Blacks out of 880,380.
The 10-county metro area is 15.4 percent Black with 264,499 Blacks
out of 1.715 million.
Black growth in the
nine suburban counties outside Indianapolis continues to skyrocket.
Since 2000, Black suburban growth has been 19,107 or 243.5 percent
compared with 21,091 in the city/county or 9.7
percent.
Blacks here continue
to outpace the Hispanic population by over three-to-one. There are
just 65,161 Hispanics in the city. 83,596 in the
metro.
The mayor’s emphasis
on the Asian population, while laudable, isn’t supported by the
Census data. Indianapolis has just 14,623 Asians, up 15.1 percent,
the metro 31,592, up 58.2 percent. Interestingly, Asians are the
only minority group that has more living in the suburbs than the
city.
Eight former
African-American Hoosier Lottery employees received justice last
week as the Lottery agreed to compensate them nearly $3 million for
racial discrimination. The eight longtime employees were fired in
2005 by Gov. Mitch Daniels’ controversial Lottery director Esther
Schneider. In a federal lawsuit, the eight claimed they were
dismissed because of their race, despite positive employee
appraisals and performance.
The employees, who‘ll
each get six figure settlements were vindicated, despite the fact
that Indiana’s Inspector General did nothing to investigate charges
of discrimination when brought to his attention.
After being pilloried
on our radio show, in this column and in two scathing reports on
WISH-TV/Channel 8 and WTHR/Channel 13, the lawn mowers were working
last week at Indy Parks with several major parks getting their
grass cut for the first time this year.
Meanwhile, Park’s
continues its insensitive callous management style. They scheduled
a public meeting Thursday to discuss the closing of the Wes
Montgomery Park’s swimming pool. Despite the fact that there’s
plenty of places (schools and churches) in the park’s neighborhood
to hold the meeting, the dolts at Indy Parks held the meeting at
Douglas Park, over four miles away.
Why couldn’t Parks
return to the Mt. Zion Apostolic Church where Mayor Greg Ballard
held an open meeting last week?
After I mentioned the
meeting several times on “Afternoons with Amos,” Mayor Ballard
faced the largest crowd of any of his “Mayor’s Night Out” events.
I’m told the crowd of some 400 asked plenty of great questions
about the lack of city services, crime and the CIB mess, but got
very little in straight answers from the mayor.
Meanwhile, the mayor
continues to demonstrate his complete cluelessness in handling
media when he threw out a Star reporter from a meeting the mayor
had with City-County Democrats, last Friday.
The Democrats wanted
the media present for a mayoral briefing on the CIB mess. But I’m
told the mayor saw red when he saw the reporter and threw him out
of the Mayor’s Office.
Contrast that with
the behavior of other elected officials who would have had the
media present for either the start or end of the meeting, do a
photo op and excuse the media for the substantive part of the
meeting.
Democrats would have
settled for that, but the mayor’s media antipathy (which isn’t just
confined to Black media) came to the surface, again.
His smile is one of
the things I and all who encountered Wayman Tisdale remember.
Tisdale, the Pacers’ star who went on after his NBA career to a new
career as a star jazz musician, died last week, too young at 44. A
preacher’s son, Tisdale was a gentleman on the court, to the
community and in his concerts. His decency and humanity is what the
new Pacers would do well to emulate.
Wayman Tisdale, his
music and humanity, will be deeply missed.
See ‘ya next
week!
Amos Brown’s
opinions are not necessarily those of the Indianapolis Recorder
Newspaper. You can contact him at (317) 221-0915 or by e-mail at
