Indianapolis’ horrid race relations, its leadership vacuum and local media’s continuing portrayal of negative racial stereotypes was on display last week as an upstart, aggressive 11 p.m. newscast unleashed a firestorm in our African-American community.
WXIN/Fox 59’s new NewsPoint broadcast aired a story July 21 with white public safety officials frightening viewers that “DJ’s and promoters” were using “racy social media ads” to bring crime into Broad Ripple.
The key on-camera accusation was leveled by Indianapolis’ Homeland Security Chief Gary Coons who said, “What kind of crowd are you trying to bring in when you show those type of images?”
Coons’ example was a phrase used on social media by an African-American promoter named DJ Cash who said, according to Coons, “‘Dope video for a Dope party.’ That draws in that type of crowd. That is an illegal activity.”
Gary Coons is a former firefighter and former Republican Perry Township Trustee who former Public Safety Director Frank Straub made Homeland Security Chief.
Obviously, Coons and his department don’t own an urban slang dictionary. If they did, they’d know that “dope” can mean something good.
Coons’ insensitive words and the Fox 59 story created a firestorm of negative comments from Blacks on Twitter and Facebook.
It doesn’t help that though Fox 59 has a strong young Black viewership; the station has no African-American managers or key decision makers.
Though NewsPoint anchor, Nicole Pence, tried to clean up the firestorm with a five-minute follow-up the next night, the damage was done; reigniting longstanding feelings of Broad Ripple’s insensitivity toward our Black community.
For decades, there’s been a persistent problem of naked racism and bigotry by some Broad Ripple bars and night spots. Serious enough that lawsuits were filed and civil rights complaints levied, with some establishments found guilty of bigotry.
Just this week, the Indianapolis Business Journal (IBJ) reported on a federal trial this past October where a Broad Ripple nightspot, Bleeker Street, is suing their landlord charging the club’s rent was doubled to force the club and its predominately African-American clientele out.
The suit alleges, says IBJ, that the landlord regularly called Bleeker Street’s patrons “ghetto” and “those types of people” and said the club needed “to get rid of those people.”
Broad Ripple is a complex, convoluted neighborhood.
The area’s neighborhood association is the Broad Ripple Village Association (BRVA). Its area is roughly Kessler Boulevard to Keystone; to 62nd Street/Broad Ripple Avenue over to White River, then following the river to College, up to 71st, over to Pennsylvania, back down to White River, then back to 63rd over to College and Westfield Boulevard, then back to Kessler.
According to the SAVI database at IUPUI, the 2011 Census ACS says the area’s population is 4,826. It’s among Indy’s most racially un-diverse neighborhoods: 92.9 percent non Hispanic white; 2.9 percent African-American; and 0.3 percent Hispanic.
The media and BRVA paints Broad Ripple as a stable, family community. The reality is FAR different.
While a majority of Broad Ripple residents are homeowners (56.4 percent), household composition is surprising. A quarter (25.9 percent) of households are married couple families. Only 9.8 percent are households with children; 10.8 percent are senior citizen households.
The Broad Ripple neighborhood, paradoxically, reflects the age demographics of those patronizing its nightspots; but not the racial diversity of its nightlife as Broad Ripple patrons. DJ’s and club owners say as many as half of those in the area on weekends are African-American.
It also doesn’t help that racial demographics of those patronizing Broad Ripple nightspots doesn’t reflect the neighborhood’s racial makeup. And what the Broad Ripple officials THINK their neighborhood is, isn’t reflected by actual statistics.
I walked the Broad Ripple “strip” last Sunday and was stunned by what I saw in broad daylight.
In the eight-block nightclub district on Broad Ripple, Westfield, Guilford, College and Winthrop streets, there were 20 bars and nightclubs!
Just on Broad Ripple Avenue between College and Winthrop – 14 clubs; 11 between College and Guilford alone.
A saturated concentration of nightspots on a street with five to eight-foot narrow sidewalks is a prescription for congestion and trouble.
I also saw a deteriorating retail environment. On Broad Ripple Avenue alone, there were nine vacant storefronts; a huge number for a supposedly hot retail area. Overall on my tour, I saw 12 vacancies.
At a BRVA residents meeting last week, I talked to several Broad Ripple residents about causes of the recent violence. They repeated the negative stereotypes of Blacks, which is fueled and perpetrated by the naïve bigotry of Indy’s mainstream media; without presenting actual evidence and facts.
Residents told me “gangs” and “people from downtown” (both code phrases for Blacks) were responsible for causing the uptick in violence.
But those residents have no proof to back up their perception of reality.
Worse, IMPD and the Department of Public Safety, usually data obsessed, has repeatedly failed to provide residents of neighborhoods like Broad Ripple and the city/county at large (including media) with actual hard, cold facts of who’s really committing crime in various city neighborhoods.
Public safety’s failure to educate with facts, while going to the media with misinformation, wrong information, negative stereotypes and just plain bunk about Blacks and minorities helps fuel the growing distrust between the races in Indy.
Right across from Broad Ripple’s venerated firehouse, I saw a BRVA sign that said “Broad Ripple Village, We’re Open If You Are.” To Indianapolis’ African-American community, that slogan rings hollow!
See ‘ya next week!
You can email comments to Amos Brown at acbrown@aol.com.
