Buttigieg responds to criticism of remarks on institutional racism

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg joins Yahoo News Senior Climate Editor Ben Adler at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, to talk about infrastructure and the future of mass transportation. During the discussion, Buttigieg responds to conservative backlash over comments he had made Monday, in which he correctly linked the history of highways to institutional racism. "To me, the issue is not in what year did somebody create this problem," Buttigieg says. "If people in 2021 are suffering from a discriminatory policy funded by the federal government, then we as the federal government have a responsibility to fix it."

Video transcript

- You made a point yesterday about the role that large highway projects have played in enforcing de facto racial segregation. And some conservatives, including Senator Ted Cruz, mocked that statement I guess because they were completely unaware that the thing you were referring to regarding Robert Moses and the parkways on Long Island is, in fact, true, that they were built too low for buses to go under to keep low income people from the inner city from going out to the beaches on Long Island.

But one thing that they-- that some of them did say in the sort of back and forth that followed which I thought was an interesting point, and I'd like to get your response, is they said, look, that was a hundred years ago. It was 1929. You have to go that far back to come up with these examples of systemic racism that you claim are widespread in our transportation infrastructure today? And so I was wondering how you would respond to that, to the-- and argue to them that it's something that still goes on.

PETE BUTTIGIEG: Well, first of all, there are many well documented examples of this happening through the '20s and '30s and '40s and '50s and '60s, '70s. And sometimes we have to be on the lookout for issues that are happening in our time. But to me, the issue is not in what year did somebody create this problem. The issue is, is that problem affecting people today in 2021? If it is, if people in 2021 are suffering from a discriminatory policy funded by the federal government, then we have a responsibility as a federal government to fix it.

And I remain kind of surprised that this is controversial. I don't know who it hurts to acknowledge that harm was done and to propose that we do something to fix it. And it's especially puzzling to hear these objections from people who voted against massive funding for roads and bridges in the infrastructure here, which has passed.