Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, has been grappling with renewed issues of racism in his city after local police killed a Black man last month.
A white man took it upon himself on Thursday to speak up for Buttigieg, who is also running for president in 2020, at a campaign event in Iowa, offering some “advice” about how to deal with these issues.
“I have a solution for you, and I’d like you to make a comment on my proposal. Just tell the Black people of South Bend to stop committing crime and doing drugs,” the man said as a few voices in the crowd started booing.
‘Twas an ignorant hot take that Buttigieg was quick to shut down.
“Sir, I think racism is not going to help us get out of this problem,” Buttigieg said bluntly, per a video posted to Twitter by journalist Yashar Ali.
“No, no, just stop committing crimes; it has nothing to do with race,” the man insisted because, of course, it has “nothing” to do with race—which is why he was singling out the myth of excessive Black crime.
Of course, whatever issues Buttigieg may have with his own community and with his own approaches to addressing these racial tensions, he is quick to come with the facts and stats, so he dropped some for the strong and wrong individual.
“The fact that a Black person is four times as likely as a white person to be incarcerated for the exact same crime is evidence of systematic racism,” Buttigieg calmly pointed out as the crowd started appluading. “With all due respect, sir, racism makes it harder for good police officers to do their job, too. It’s a smear on law enforcement.”
And that’s that on that.