South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg said Thursday he regretted using the phrase “all lives matter” in 2015, explaining that he did not know it was used to “devalue” the Black Lives Matter movement.
“At that time, I was talking about a lot of issues around racial reconciliation in our community. What I did not understand at that time, was that phrase, just early into mid-2015, was coming to be viewed as a sort of counter slogan to Black Lives Matter,” the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate said, according to CNN. “And so, this statement, that seems very anodyne and something that nobody could be against, actually wound up being used to devalue what the Black Lives Matter movement was telling us.”
“That is the contribution of Black Lives Matter and it’s a reason why, since learning about how that phrase was being used to push back on that activism, I’ve stopped using it in that context,” he added.
Buttigieg said the phrase during his 2015 State of the City speech. The phrase has been used by critics of Black Lives Matter, which seeks to end police brutality against African Americans.
“There is no contradiction between respecting the risks that police officers take every day in order to protect this community, and recognizing the need to overcome the biases implicit in a justice system that treats people from different backgrounds differently, even when they are accused of the same offenses,” Buttigieg said in the 2015 speech. “We need to take both those things seriously, for the simple and profound reason that all lives matter.”
Buttigieg launched a presidential exploratory committee in January and is expected to officially announce his presidential run next week.
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