People in glass houses…
7th January 2020 · 0 Comments
Former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s recent criticism of former Vice President Joe Bidens vote for the Iraqi invasion and Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, for sitting on the board of Burisma, the Ukrainian oil company, which Donald J. Trump wanted to investigate and which lead to his impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives, smacks of hypocrisy and worse. Buttigieg’s attack on Biden sounded suspiciously Republicanesque.
Black people have a sixth sense when it comes to ferreting out those who profess to be Democrats but are Republicans at heart. Back in the day, they were called Blue Dog Democrats and Conservative Democrats. Clearly, Buttigieg and Tulsi Gabbard are Democratic presidential candidates who sound more like Republicans than Democrats.
Buttigieg told The Associated Press he would not want a son of his to give the appearance of such a conflict of interest, as Hunter Biden did in serving on the Burisma board of directors. In the same interview, Buttigieg condemned Joe Biden for his Iraq War vote.
Buttigieg committed the sin of hypocrisy and went against his professed Christian faith in his attack on the purported front-runner for the Democratic nomination:
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye. – Matthew 7-5
In our culture, what Buttigieg did was the “pot calling the skillet black,” on a disparate level. Because the baggage that Buttigieg brings to the table has caused the former mayor to have zero credibility and zero percent support in the Black community. And Buttigieg’s track record on police misconduct is the reason.
Never mind his recent after-thought outreach to the Black community in South Carolina or his frank admission that he “couldn’t get it done,” when it came to diversifying the South Bend, Indiana Police Department during his eight years as mayor.
No, Buttigieg’s track record and refusal to do nothing while a racist police department killed Black people is a game changer in his bid for POTUS.
Not only did Buttigieg do nothing about the 2012 murder of Michael Anderson by officer David Johnson, who was promoted in October 2019 to Sergeant, Buttigieg’s firing and demotion of South Bend, Indiana’s first African-American Police Chief Darryl Boykins, 13 weeks after he was elected (allegations were that Buttigieg bowed to pressure from donors, who pursued the appointment of a different police chief at the bequest of police personnel); his inaction in the case of Eric Jack Logan, a 54-year-old father of seven, who was killed by Sgt. Ryan O’Neill on Father Day 2019, who claimed that Logan pulled a knife on him but O’Neill’s body cam was off; and Buttigieg’s refusal to fire Police Chief Scott Ruszkowski, who approved of the promotion of Johnson and has done nothing to clean up the racist SBPD, all point to Buttigieg’s complicity in the rampant institutional racism that he allowed to prevail during his eight years as mayor.
Buttigieg claimed to have fired Boykins because the police chief was under an FBI investigation. According to news reports, Boykins was being investigated concerning secret recordings of white underlings who used racial epithets about him and plotted to get rid of him once Buttigieg was in office.
Though O’Neill resigned in July 2019, Black Lives Matter activists wanted Buttigieg to fire Ruszkowski. But according to news reports, Buttigieg told them during a private call in July 2019 that he would not fire the chief. The family of Logan sued the city in federal court last July. The lawsuit for wrongful death excessive force, and other claims, also references accusations that O’Neill made racist comments 11 years ago. The comments were reported by a fellow patrolman and did not result in any discipline from the city, the lawsuit states.
The proof of Buttigieg’s complicity is borne out in statistics that show that the South Bend Police Department is less diverse than when he took office. The department had 26 African-American officers in 2014, a little more than 10 percent of the 253-officer department was Black. There are now 13 Black officers in the force, according to numbers released by the department, leaving the department 88 percent white and just over five percent Black.
Buttigieg’s overtures to the Black community notwithstanding his “Douglass Plan,” does nothing to erase his silence in the face of police brutality and harassment on his watch. And he certainly doesn’t have a leg to stand on when criticizing other candidates.
Clearly, Buttigieg should clean up his own house before calling another person’s house dirty.
Black people can sense disingenuity and hypocrisy a mile away.
“You’re running for president, and you want Black people to vote for you?” one Black woman said while confronting Buttigieg. “That’s not going to happen.” “Ma’am, I’m not asking for your vote,” Buttigieg responded.
Buttigieg like many other candidates who run for office have the nerve to discount and/or downplay the importance of the Black vote.
But every vote counts.
If you think you can win the Democratic nomination for president without the Black vote, think again Mr. Buttigieg.
This article originally published in the January 6, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
