Former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, now a top-tier candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, oversaw a non-discrimination police training program that claimed law enforcement did not value black lives and went on to warn against many forms of bias, including “languageism” and “sizeism,” according to documents newly released to Judicial Watch. A diversity workshop even warned against using the terms “deaf” and “dumb” because they are supposedly offensive.
“These documents show how South Bend police under Mayor Buttigieg had to contend with politicized ‘training’ that had nothing to do with the public safety,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement.
The South Bend Police Department training material claims all personnel have a measurable Cumulative Perceptual Index (CPI) rating, which measures each officer’s “cultural competence.” They are assumed to be racist, sexist, “sizeist,” and whatever-ist is in vogue at the moment until they can prove their lack of bias.
“The CPI theory posits that our behaviors and biases today may well be rooted in our individual measurable CPI rating,” the training material revealed by Judicial Watch says. “Its base assertion is that we all have been exposed to bigotry and biases at various stages of our lives. What and with what levels of intensity those exposures took place is an important variable in our past, current and future interpersonal interactions. One thing that the CPI theory holds certain is that none of us were born with prejudices and biases. It also posits that all of us have had some prejudice or bias get dispelled in some way over time and it is that factor that can facilitate measurable adjustments in our CPI ratings.”
One slide in the SBPD anti-discrimination police training notes that “Black lives do indeed mater [sic], but no more, and certainly no less than the lives of every community within law enforcement’s jurisdictions. The perceptual proof of that belief is unquestionably not universally present today because such a Vision is not yet universally shared by law enforcement.”
When discussing different forms of bias, the police training manual presents “The ‘Ism’ Trail,” a list of biases including “Racism, Sexism, Ageism, Languageism, Materialism, Classism, Colorism, Sizeism,” and further bullet points left to be filled out later.
Indeed, bias often does shape a person’s view of others, and these views can influence law enforcement. However, claims of rampant racism among American police forces do not hold up to scrutiny. Classes on systemic racism — specifically white privilege — do not make conservatives more sympathetic to black people but do make liberals less sympathetic to poor whites, and more likely to blame poor whites for their own poverty.
In July 2019, Mayor Pete released a comprehensive reparations/affirmative action plan to fight supposed “systemic racism.” Black voters have remained skeptical of Buttigieg in the Democratic primary, partially because the mayor decided to fire a black police chief.
While Mayor Pete has not run a hard identity politics campaign like Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.), he has weaponized his liberal interpretation of Christianity to support far-left positions on a wide range of issues, from the minimum wage to environmentalist policies.
These new documents seem once again to reveal Buttigieg as a liberal ideologue, pushing an extraordinarily broad politically slanted bias training on police that does not help them protect public safety.
Follow Tyler O’Neil, the author of this article, on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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