Election 2020

Pete Buttigieg in 2011: Minority Children Don't Have Role Models Who Value Education

Pete Buttigieg in 2011: Minority Children Don't Have Role Models Who Value Education
Mayor Pete Buttigieg talks with an AP reporter at Farmers Market in South Bend, Ind., Thursday, Jan. 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Pete Buttigieg isn’t exactly crushing it with minority voters, and a newly resurfaced clip from his 2011 mayoral campaign isn’t going to be very helpful in improving his support from this key demographic.

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“Kids need to see evidence that education is going to work for them,” Pete said. “You’re motivated because you believe that at the end of your education process there’s a reward, there’s a stable life, there’s a job. There are a lot of kids, especially the lower-income, minority neighborhoods, who literally just haven’t seen it work. There isn’t somebody they know personally who testifies to the value of education.”

The reaction to the video has not been positive.

To gauge how the black community feels about the Indianan in light of the new video, you can look no further than a new piece from The Root entitled, simply, “Pete Buttigieg is a Lying MF.” In his writeup, Michael Harriot paints Buttigieg as a privileged hypocrite.

“But even though Buttigieg has never attended a school with more than 10 percent black students, he thinks he knows what’s stopping black kids from achieving their educational dreams,” Harriot writes.

The Buttigieg campaign did its best to deflect.

“Pete’s point is that we have to recognize that structural barriers persist in our public education system, and that these barriers disproportionately impact low-income and minority communities,” his spokesperson said in a statement to Newsweek.

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Mayor Pete may be a privileged hypocrite, but then again, who isn’t in the Democratic Party?

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