#147. Indianapolis Professional Sports Teams

Indianapolis is the capital city of Indiana and has one of the largest urban white populations in the country:

"According to the 2007 American Community Survey, the city's population was 68.3% White (63.8% non-Hispanic-White alone), 27.2% Black or African American, 0.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 1.9% Asian, 0.2% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, 4.0% from some other race and 2.2% from two or more races. 6.6% of the total population were Hispanic or Latino of any race."

For that reason alone, Black people don't like the city of Indianapolis as most major cities in the United States are areas where they have proliferated and made over in their image, such as Atlanta and Detroit. Any major urban area that has a majority white population is in the cross-hairs of Black people to bring change and un-gentrification.

However, the banal whiteness of Indianapolis is only further augmented by the whiteness of the major sports teams in the city, the National Football League's (NFL) Indianapolis Colts and the National Basketball Association's (NBA) Indiana Pacers.

The Pacers have been accused of being too white, in a league that is dominated by Black people, as more than half of the players on the team are white:

"Is Pacers president Larry Bird specifically trying to build a team
dominated by white players? It's an uncomfortable question to ask in these politically correct days, but how do you ignore a roster that includes Mike Dunleavy, Troy Murphy, Josh McRoberts, Travis Diener, Jeff Foster and now, first-round pick Tyler
Hansbrough?

In a league where little more than 10 percent of the players are white Americans, the Pacers roster is racially split down the middle, making them one of the whitest teams in the league."

Being too white is a bad thing to Black people, even a city that is numerically a white city. The great white basketball player, Larry Bird, who is the Pacers president, said:

"I don't see race at all," Bird said recently. "I know a lot of it comes out of
the brawl (in 2004 at Detroit), people think Indiana has to get all white guys,
but I don't buy any of that. I played in Boston, where it didn't matter who came
in or who left, it was who helped us win. (Late Celtics coach and architect) Red
(Auerbach) never saw color. And I don't, either. I just pick them. If we hadn't
taken Tyler Hansbrough, it would have been Ty Lawson. And if I could have gotten
another pick (later in the first round), I would have taken Sam Young or Wayne
Ellington."

Now, look at the Colts of the NFL, one of the top teams in professional football. Led by great white quarterback Peyton Manning, the Colts will field two starting white receivers this season - Anthony Gonzalez and the amazing Austin Collie from BYU - and also have Dallas Clark catching passes. A few years ago, an article was written that pointed out that the Colts had the highest amount of white players in the NFL:

"It's already starting to happen. A little-publicized fact is that the Colts and
the Patriots — the league's model franchises — are two of the whitest teams in
the NFL. If you count rookie receiver Anthony Gonzalez, the Colts opened the
season with an NFL-high 24 white players on their 53-man roster."

Now, the media attacks teams that are too white, like the Houston Astros World Series team a few years ago, but they laud teams that are inclusive of Black people, like the Tampa Bay Rays of last years World Series:

"In the 2005 Series, the Houston Astros had no black players. The Colorado Rockies last year had one, an obscure relief pitcher.

But this year, the competing teams both feature African American stars, to the delight of the players involved and to the officials charged with luring black youth back to the baseball diamond.

"It's got to be huge, just to see these faces on TV," Tampa Bay pitcher David Price said, "so young African Americans can relate and see something to shoot for."

Blacks accounted for 8.2% of major league players last season, according to a diversity study by the University of Central Florida, the lowest annual percentage since the study began in 1990."

Black people love that: a story of Black achievement in a sport they are reportedly underrepresented in, yet proportionally closest to as their actual population of the United States would seem (Black people make up 13 percent of the US population and 8 percent of pro baseball). The fact that the Pacers are half-white and the Colts have the most white players in the NFL is to much for sports fans, but that baseball has to few Black people is a sin that must be corrected whatever the cost.

Black people do not like it when whites excel at sports, let alone when they do it in mass, and in one city, like Indianapolis. Black people will only be happy and content when all sports, be it baseball, football, basketball or hockey, are comprised only of Black people.

Each time a white occupies a Black persons spot is detrimental to this goal and that team cannot be cheered for, regardless if it is the hometown. Thus, why Indianapolis professional sports teams are made of the Stuff Black People Don't Like.