Ed Treacy has sunk to new lows. He claims that Mayor Greg Ballard uttered a phrase during last week's debate that proves Ballard is a racist. He provides no context, nor any link to a transcript or recording so fair minded people can check his claims out for themselves. But, he has an ad running on radio trying to incense Indy's African American voters so that the will come to the polls in force and vote for Melina Kennedy.
If Ballard made a racist statement during the debate, why then did Kennedy, who was standing right next to him at the time and had a microphone at her disposal, why then did she not call him out on the spot? She did not because Ed Treacy is making this crap up.
It is gutter politics and race-baiting at its worst.
All decent Democrats should be outraged and call for Treacy's removal as Chairman of the County Party.
Melina Kennedy must repudiate Treacy's tactics and demand that the ad be pulled from the airwaves.
How she handles this situation will speak volumes about whether or not she is fit to lead our City.
Its that simple.
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by not repeating the phrase in question (that blacks are a "difficult population"), and not linking to news reports about this story, you are doing something very similar to what you accuse treacy of doing: making an accusation without providing context for your audience.
at the least, ballard is guilty of choosing his words very poorly.
stAllio, the news story you link to does not include any link to what Ballard supposedly said or the context of the 'phrase in question'- I quote from your link: "A transcript of the Oct. 15 debate wasn't available Friday" I have read MCDP's statement and listened to the commercial and have yet to hear or read anywhere what Ballard said or the context of his remarks. I'm sorry, but at this point it is very much a phrase "in question" though not in the way you mean it.
i found the video: the question starts at about 3:00; kennedy answers first. ballard uses the phrase "difficult populations" twice, starting at about 4:50.
Thank you for posting this. You are the first to actually provide the context and actual clip. Having listened, I think it is quite clear, given the question asked specifically about unemployment among African-American and also hispanic populations, he is speaking about the difficult population of UNEMPLOYED residents within the context of the question posed- i.e. subset by ethnicity asked by the Indianapolis Recorder journalist. I do not agree that what he said was offensive or racist. I'm not seeing (or hearing) it at all in what you just posted. I'm also not sure what you mean either by "at the least" in your original post.
I'll add that I agree 100% with how Melina answered the question and responded to the Mayor's comments- not by focusing on this "phrase", but responding to the substance of what Mayor Ballard actually said- listing all these programs is not what matters, the results of them matter and the unemployment rates by ethnicity, particularly African-American men, is unacceptable.
If we keep our eye on the prize by ditching the distractions we can elect Melina.
On the WTLC Radio debate Friday, the Mayor was directly asked about the comment. He was asked are Blacks who are jobless difficult? He didn't address it or answer the question. In the context of the Channel 13 debate the phrase can be looked at by Blacks as not a positive comment. The Mayor had an opportunity to directly address it to a predominantly Black audience and didn't. What Pay didn't mention was the other part of Treacy's ad which talks about the lack of diversity in the Mayor's top appointments. In that he is the first Mayor in over two decades to not have appointed any Black as head of a major city department, including police, fire or public safety. That part of the ad is just as devasting to Ballard among Blacks. Melina addressed that issue which was brought up in the debate yesterday. Again, Ballard skirted it.
I disagree strongly, Pat. I think it's an absolutely fair criticism. Mayor Ballard is not a racist, I agree, but he is completely out of touch. Calling a group of people a "difficult population" is an absolutely unfortunate way to refer to individuals who are struggling most to find their way in this community.
The fact that he didn't cite really anything he WOULD DO just all the things that aren't working now tells me that he's clueless on how to tackle the problem.
I will have to strongly disagree with you, Pat.
Thank you Pat, for your decency & civility.
The same guy being slandered as "racist," knew fellow Marines as brothers (distinction transcending the superficial or color), married a lovely minority woman, wrote for Indiana Minority Magazine & mentored at the Boys Club- before he was Mayor.
In the Star, Candidate Kennedy makes a leaderless, all too lawyerly deflection of a statement, that she doesn't know what the Mayor "meant" by his comments. That's not competitive- it's SLANDER!
does anyone deny "it" [the African-America population] is one, of many, populations with difficulties? Does anyone deny that these difficulties are not, entirely, of their making? Focus on the facts rather than some hyperventilation about phrasing that at the very very worst is inelegant. But then almost all politics is inelegant. And ask Treacy if he's ever used the "n" word or engaged in intentional race-baiting to GOTV. The chair must be concerned about enthusiasm levels in the baseline and worried about a Modisett/Peterson moment when that "difficult" African-American population showed their displeasure with uncharismatic Junior League, and Chamber of Commerce-style Democrats, who had been pretending to be progressives.
I think the commment is way overblown. It was just a guy who picked not the best words to convey what he was meant This hardly falls into the Eugene White "crippled and crazy" category.
I'm more worried about the cheap shot taken at Christine Scales. She's the one Republican who has stood up and been an independent voice on the council, a thoughtful person who is great with constiuent relations. And the piece made it sound like she lives in Florida and ignores people in her district. I don't know if the piece came from Ed Treacy, but it is nothing but mudslinging.
Ed Treacy is a sleazy but typical example of the continuing criminal combine that the Democratic Party has become. Melina lost my vote when she told a TV reporter that the "difficult population" TV ad was published by the county Dem committee...as if she could bring no pressure to bear on Treacy's antics. It's her campaign after all. I'll hold my nose and vote for Ballard. At least he fixes roads and sidewalks. If elected, Melina's cronies will steal just as much as Ballard's, if not more. I remember them in action when Bart was the mayor. Talk about a "difficult" population.
stAllio! - I didn't realize there was a Star article until after I published my blog entry.
None-the-less I think setting someone up with the racist tag makes all links, provided or not, pale in comparison. Never putting the exact phrase in its exact context is exactly how Treacy manages the implication that Ballard is a racist. So, why on earth would I help him out by repeating his out of context quote?
Jon - if they said Ballard was merely out of touch I would have no problem. They have in fact frequently done so. But what they did was call Ballard a racist - an opinion that I am glad to hear you do not share.
What can be more like throwing gasoline on a fire than calling someone a racist? Nobody can adequately defend the assertion - and certainly not in sound bites.
I have no doubt you understand the political calculus employed by Treacy. But where do you draw a line and say the ends do not justify the means?
Treacy's intentions are clear and I stand by my view that it is gutter politics and race baiting at is worst.
My party is better than that.
Pat -- you speak a lot of truth to power, but you are 100 percent wrong on this one. First, it is legitimate for African-Americans to say what they think about Ballard's comment, and Ed is merely reflecting what many African-Americans are feeling. Second, what would be a good explanation from Ballard about what he meant in calling the black community a "difficult population"? I'm all ears if you can tell me. He had the opportunity to tell us in the debate tonight -- damned if I heard an explanation.
anon 8:31 - first of all - to push the term 'difficult population' to mean racism is what Treacy, with Kennedy's approval, is doing. It is in fact out of context, but that evidently does not ping on what passes for ethics and morality for them.
The answer Ballard gave was in reference to the extreme unemployment rates among Indy's male African American population. He could have used many different phrases. But his meaning was that the rate is intractable and the hurdles to fixing it are large. I think anyone who has not already been poisoned by Treacy and Kennedy's gutter politics might be open to that interpretation.
I think I have proven I am not a fan of many of Ballard's policies. But, trying to stretch what he said into racism is to be totally sleazy. What does Melina teach her children? Don't discriminate, hate or underestimate your fellow human beings.... but if it works to your advantage to accuse your opponent of doing so, while pretending that your hands are clean, then its okay?
It is immoral. It is gutter politics. It is trying to turn anything to your advantage, even when it you know it to be a lie.
Again I will repeat - every decent Democrat should be outraged because all principals are lost when you can do something so reprehensible as this.
If you have to turn into a turd to get elected, well, just maybe you were a turd to begin with. And, maybe, just maybe, you will have no ethics when you get into office. Hell, no maybe about it. If you can lie about an important issue like racism, then you have no ethics.
Appreciate your empassioned response, Pat. Here are a few things to think about though. First, you are choosing to beat up on Ed Treacy, because he is an easy target -- (you don't like him and) few are going to spend time defending him. But you've ignored that the voice on the radio ad about the "difficult population ad" is Pastor Michael Jones, who is the son of the late civil rights leader Sam Jones. If you want to lump him and other African-Americans in with the Democratic Party Chairman, okay, it's your blog, but good luck. Second, this isn't the first time Ballard has been loose lipped about non-upper-middle-class white folks. In the very same debate in which Ballard uttered the infamous "difficult population" comment, he conceded that he misspoke when he called working class waiters and waitresses "transient" in reference to whether they were deserving of protection from second-hand smoke. You know, at some point as the mayor of the 11th largest city in America, you just have to take responsibility for your words. Finally, there is the hypocrisy factor. Ballard went on Amos Brown's show about a year ago and said he was the best mayor for African-Americans ever -- his words. Since then, we have 21 percent unemployment in the black community, he lied about having met with the president of the NAACP (becuase he though it was a man instead of a woman), he is flittering all over the place on promotions of black police officers, and in the midst of that he calls African-Americans a "difficult population." He doesn't apologize, doesn't say he misspoke (like he did about wait staff), and blames others for taking his comments out of context. It's too bad he's bamboozled you -- but don't ask the rest of us to ride the high horse you are on -- especially when mainly you are doing it to joust with Ed Treacy. Thanks.
Anon 10:11- You'll find many known Democrats on face book calling for Melina to denounce the false charge of racism. Pat is right and Melina is wrong on this.
Thomas Sowell "It doe not matter what the facts are, but only what people will believe". People will believe anything being said by known persons in power, those seeking any public office have no reason to lie to the public about anything said unless their facts will be questioned.
Evidently tactics of bearing false witness as fact are being questioned here and elsewhere.
I'd submit that it's more the "tactic" of twisting everything into a 'racism' drama. I guess that substitutes for debating the issues, at least in some people's minds. +1 for Pat's take on this sorry affair.
The problem with Treacy (and to be fair, Kyle C Walker) is that they shout "Fire!" so much that almost no one in the news media takes them seriously.
At least Treacy has some campaign skills and a winning record to backup his rhetoric. Walker, on the other hand...
If Kennedy won't stand up to her cronies in the Democrat party, then there is no way she has the wearwithall to stand up for us.
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