Buttigieg tries to appeal to black voters in Las Vegas

By John Sadler

Saturday, Dec. 21, 2019 | 8:03 p.m.

When it was Donna Darden’s turn to pose a question to Pete Buttigieg, she pointedly asked the presidential candidate about an issue important to the North Las Vegas community she lives in: police brutality.

Darden, who sits on the executive board of the Nevada Democratic Party, was one of a handful of community members at EllaEm’s Soul Food Restaurant in North Las Vegas for Buttigieg’s Saturday appearance. The South Bend, Ind., mayor shared his plans to handle multiple issues affecting the black community, including the rise of violent acts toward minorities from white supremacy groups, health care and income equality, and police brutality toward blacks.

“I’m definitely not against police officers, but I’m against good police officers not being given the power to get rid of the bad police officers because it’s getting the good police officers killed,” Darden said afterwards.

Buttigieg, who was in Las Vegas with hopes of gaining support from minority voters ahead of the quickly-approaching 2020 Nevada Democratic caucuses in February, responded by saying, “the most important thing that I want to make sure African-American voters hear is that we do not take anyone for granted.”

Buttigieg, a political moderate compared to more left-wing candidates Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has consistently polled low with black voters nationwide. A recent Quinnipiac University poll put him at less than 1% with black voters in South Carolina.

He has made efforts to make inroads in the black community, releasing in July his Douglass Plan — a comprehensive plan that includes reforming criminal justice and health care. Throughout his campaign, he has also stressed that white supremacy is one of the biggest threats to the United States.

Ty Jones, a U.S. Marine veteran and the vice president of the North Las Vegas Democratic Club, said Buttigieg’s campaign is being overshadowed by the concurrent campaign of former Vice President Joe Biden, who can appeal to black voters due to his connection to former President Barack Obama.

Jones said that while he respects Buttigieg and thinks he has some good ideas, he is cynical about the candidate’s follow-through.

“I think (his responses) were sort of superficial. I think the black community over the years have heard the same sort of answers — fund the HBCUs, we’re going to deal with income injustice, we’re going to deal with redlining, we’re going to deal with criminal justice reform,” he said. “I mean, it’s the same thing.”

His skepticism isn’t just around Buttigieg. He said that candidates generally love to talk about addressing issues in the African-American community without ever following through in office.

“I’ve been around since Kennedy, and not one … president has made (these issues) an agenda item and said ‘this is going to be part of my platform, to do this,’” he said. “But they speak about it, just in passing.”

Darden said that it is important to continue making sure that issues affecting the black community are heard.

“Lyndon B. Johnson did not write the Civil Rights Act because he liked us, he wrote it because the pressure of Malcom X and Martin Luther King and he knew if he didn’t do something soon, the place was going to blow up,” Darden said.

Assemblywoman Brittney Miller, D-Las Vegas, said that while white supremacy is a problem in the United States, microaggressions — indirect or unintentional acts of racism — and white privilege are concepts which affect her life on a more day-to-day basis.

Buttigieg was sympathetic, saying that the American society is set up to consider white as the standard skin color, which can contribute to an environment where things like microaggressions are more prevalent.

“The thing about being white is you don’t notice being white in a country where the culture makes white the default,” he said.