In an interview this morning with Charlamagne Tha God on his nationally syndicated radio show The Breakfast Club, Pete Buttigieg shared his take on the recent HBO clip showing Kevin Hart pretending not to understand the homophobia faced by Lil’ Nas X.
The clip in question showed Hart saying, “[Lil Nas X] said he was gay. So what?” and asking Lil Nas X to explain the homophobia he experience growing up gay in the Georgia government project, even though Hart’s past “jokes” expressed the very sort of homophobia and violence queer youth face during childhood.
“I think when somebody finds it necessary to wave their arms up and down and jump up and down telling you how much this isn’t a thing for them it makes you wonder whether they’re being honest with themselves,” Buttigieg said of Hart’s reaction.
Related: Out candidate Pete Buttigieg would beat Donald Trump in presidential election
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Buttigieg continued: “I think it was the fact that he found it necessary to interrupt Lil Nas X and jump in and let everybody know that he doesn’t care. It’s almost like … what some folks hear when they hear somebody say ‘I don’t see color.’ … [Homophobia] is actually a thing. Kids are putting bullets through their heads over this.”
Buttigieg adds that it “took a lot of courage” for Lil Nas X to come out, especially since it now means that he’s forced to talk about it more than his music. Buttigieg also says that when Lil Nas X mentioned that he chose to come out at the top of his musical success, it underscored the fact that many queer people risk their own success if they come out before making it big.
While Buttigieg affirms the importance of talking about how individual identities taint people’s experience with discrimination, he added “I think where it’s a problem is if we define people around [identity].” That is, people don’t just want to be forced to discuss how they’re different all the time.
“It means different things to different people,” Buttigieg tells Charlamagne. “I’m not out to be the president of gay America. I’m out to be the president of the United States of America. But it’s part of who I am. It’s part of my experience. It shapes me, I think it informs the way I come at the world. Part of it is the fact that I’m in a marriage. Not a gay marriage. Just a marriage, right? And like everybody else who is married, that’s part of how I come at the world. But also that I belong to a group that’s been impacted by hate. It does affect the way I understand the world.”
Here’s the video of Buttigieg’s interview with Charlamagne tha God:
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Hart was just in a serious car wreck…. Karma at it’s best!
Mack
I don’t don’t wish ill-will on anyone, but Hart is a bigot.
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Pter
PLEASE, STOP THIS IDIOT!
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21 hours ago
GourmetGuy
Pete Buttigieg is a prince. I’ve never been this enthusiastic about a Presidential candidate, and I’ve been ALL around the block. Buttigieg just seems to get everything just right.
MikeM
Absolutely. He is ridiculously smart and makes his point so well.
evanxx
Pete Buttigieg may be well educated, but he’s NOT very smart. He’s a self loathing, half-closeted gay who has intentionally excluded certain segments of the LGBTQ community. He talks about wanting to “cut out” his sexual orientation “with a knife.” He NEVER talks about people with AIDS; he can’t even say the word publicly. Pete has NO policies to help those with HIV live a decent life. He refuses to help LGBT Seniors; encouraging his cult followers to ignore the past and “change the channel.” He is a poor representative for the Gay Community. He does NOT represent people like me who were activists since Stonewall, nor people like me who have lived with AIDS since the 80s.
zoomlens
EvanXX — are you off your meds or what? Utter gibberish and complete lies about Mayor Pete.
evanxx
zoomlens _ You say I’m wrong?? Where’s your rebuttal? Where’s your documentation? Your personal opinion and insults is not proof enough. (Typical hostile Pete-cult follower)
jasentylar
Evanxx, bitter much? He is very smart…the smartest candidate. I worry about his ability to govern when things don’t go according to plan. He did discuss HIV/AIDS policy this summer in NYC. Dems need to win the Senate before anything real can be done.
grich
Aside from their political stances ( though I support most of them ) can you imagine the brain power behind a ticket of Mayor Peter and Elizabeth Warren? Sick those two on Trump and Pence!
evanxx
jasentylar _ Why do Pete’s Trolls resort to personal attacks and lies when they can’t refute their candidate’s inadequacies? In June, Pete sat for 35 minutes to listen to a handful of NYC activists try to educate him about AIDS. Pete has NEVER spoken publicly about people with AIDS! Is it because he doesn’t understand the difference between AIDS and HIV? Why doesn’t Pete have a plan to help them? Why isn’t it in the ‘ISSUES’ on his website?
Go ahead and prove me wrong.
G-no
Evanxx..?? Surely you jest when you asked does mayor pete know the difference between aids and hiv.. If u were NOT joking , then all ur credibility is lost.. Additionally u seem quite perturbed that he hasn’t mentioned aids.. As if a gay President has the duty to address it.. Let’s be reminded that aids/HIV is NOT a gay disease.. Anyone can and does have it.. Also it’s not an epidemic like it was in the 80s.. Have u seen the truvada commercials?? They makin it look like a cold.. lol.. But seriously.. Let’s not pigeonhole the potentially first gay prez into fight for gay issues that aren’t actually gay issues
evanxx
G-no _ Surely you you’re not so ignorant to suggest that HIV infection is no longer an epidemic? In America, there are thousands of newly infected HIV cases every week! It’s a major health crisis that ALL the Dem. candidates need to be addressing. Many of them like Kamala Harris have already announced their plan to fight AIDS and HIV; but Petey Boy has remained silent about it.
I’m appalled by any idiot suggesting it’s no worse than a cold. People still die from HIV related infections everyday in this country. I’ve been living with AIDS for more than 30 years; so don’t insult me by suggesting it’s not a major issue. Someday when Pete is older, he will realize it too.
Felecia
Finally, somebody GETS it…I am a lesbian married to another female; this doesn’t define us, and we are tired of having to talk about it all the time. We have grown kids and grandchildren, and are known to everybody in the family as ‘The Grandmas’…our neighbors became our friends within the senior citizen complex we live in; to many, we were the first LGBT persons they actually ever saw and spoke with on a regular social level, lol….we’re just boring old ladies who like cats, yard sales, and Netflix, lol…and some of our LGBT friends claim that we should be out there, doing ‘activist stuff’ now that we’re retired. Bullcrap; we did all that in the 80’s and 90’s. Waving rainbow flags, attending a rally, door-to-door with petitions for equal rights, etc….and things got done that no LGBT citizen dreamed about could ever happen anytime soon, lol….so now my wife and I want to be Americans first, retirees second, women third, Grandmas fourth, and bringing up the rear but not forgotten…lesbians. Mayor Pete belongs to us here in Indiana; but the United States would do well to borrow him awhile. He understands that life doesn’t HAVE to be ‘all gay, all the time, 24/7 and 365’…unlike the cartoonish LGBT characters Hollywood keeps throwing at us, lol….we’re voting for him for several reasons, not simply because he is gay. We hope America does too…and DC can keep that Nazi assh*le Mike Pence when Trump’s circus-of-bizarre ends, lol….nobody here wants him back…… :0
davidjohng
Bravo!!
evanxx
Pete belongs to Indiana, and they can keep him. He’s a typical, clueless millennial “know-it-all” who thinks he knows more than the pioneers that paved the way for his civil rights. I won’t vote for anyone under the age of 45.
jasentylar
Preach!
petej
me likin’ some pete. always articulate, shedding light not heat. what we need more of!!!
rustyiam
Butt plug is a Marxist no one takes him seriously except extremists and the media!
WillParkinson
Butt plug? Oh, my. You’re so ‘clever’.
dhmonarch89
I wish you’d focus SOME attention on the other Democratic candidates for President! Yes- he’s gay, but several others have done WAY more than he has for our community!
Shannon1981
I honestly think that he will distance himself from us if elected. He won’t want to draw attention to it.
Shannon1981
Not a Mayor Pete fan myself. I love, as a gay millenial having a viable gay millenial presidential candidate. It says a lot about how far we’ve come. That being said, I’m also a Black lesbian. I don’t buy his bullshit about what happened with that Black police chief’s demotion – the first one in his city’s history. Very, very shady. I also didn’t like his answer to the “All Lives Matter” BS. Same for the handling of the white officer involved shooting with a Black man a few months back. He needs to understand why he has a Black voter problem. He wants to sound woke on issues of race, he needs to BE woke.
Aside from that – he’s also a GINO (gay in name only). He hid in his closet, built up a career and passed for straight while we marched in the streets, watched our friends die from AIDS, got bullied in high school and college, got fired and evicted. When he finally comes out, he makes sure that we know that he KNOWS about gay apps like Grindr, but also makes sure we know he isn’t one of THOSE gays. He and his husband will never be caught dead in a gay bar or dressing in drag or supporting those who do. He makes sure he dog whistles straight bigots with his anecdotes about wanting to be something different, all so, again, straight bigots find him palatable, so they know he isn’t like the gays they loathe and fear so much. He’s different – he at least has the decency to express that he would be “normal” if he could.
I like his tone and words, but all of the above and then some just make me think he’s just another upper middle class white dude who wants to be president and doesn’t know a damn thing about real hardship when it comes to being gay or anything else. And that’s on purpose. He should have fought the good fight, but he chose to cower, and I have zero respect for that.
G-no
Peace Shannon1981… Kudos for the marching and activism on behalf of our community?… I don’t think bashing the first potential openly gay prez is gonna help us tho.. Seems similar to black people saying Obama wasn’t black enuff back in ’08?.. Also u seem upset mayor pete didnt participate in the gay activismback in the 80s.. Are u keeping in mind that he was a minor then and wasnt even alive during stonewall…? That would be like black americans being mad at Obama for not marching with MLK!! It seems like LGBT community did quite well for ourselves before mayor pete came along… So it just seems counterintuitive to seemingly pin all our hopes on this one guy who just showed up.. Hetero white dudes have had a couple centuries to screw up America.. I haven’t made my mind up about the election. . but If he does win, ill certainly celebrate for us.. I would hope that you’d join us!
Shannon1981
@G-no – gonna try this again and try and stay out of moderation. I was born in 1981. I’m like 8 months older than Mayor Pete. I came out at 14, in the 1990s. The only activism was not that of the 80s. And I’ not “bashing” him. Just because he’s gay doesn’t mean he is above criticism. And aside from his being a GINO, I just don’t think he’s woke enough on issues of race, which is a top priority to me. Of course if he gets the nomination I’ll champion him, celebrate him, work for him, vote for him – just like any other Dem candidate.
OhNoYouDont
You need to read up on Pete’s positions. Are you familiar with The Douglass Plan?
I’m disgusted by one issue voters myself….Evanxx, AIDS isn’t the issue it once was….people are surviving, there are cocktails and things aren’t as dire as they were in the 80’s and 90’s. You’d be well advised to look at his health plan. Dissing the man because he’s not old enough or not black enough or not female enough are ridiculous. I’m not ruling any candidate out right now. Let the cream rise to the top. I’m also not going to backstab any democratic candidates and help Trump get reelected.
https://peteforamerica.com/issues/
RandomGuy
Will Ellen jump in to call Pete a “hater” now?
Shannon1981
No one is going to call Pete a hater. He is, however, a coward. He also uses this community for political gain without actually joining it. He is an imitation hetero who never suffered one iota for being gay. And as a straight passing, upper middle class white dude…well…boo hoo.
evanxx
Shannon1981 _ Thank you! Your comments are spot on! Pete has no clue about struggling for civil rights! He’s never been a part of our “community” and is incapable of understanding what real discrimination is like for Blacks or people with AIDS.
Shannon1981
evanxx- Thanks! I just don’t see how so many people have crowned him Saint Pete and can’t look at his abysmal record on race relations, the cowardly, carefully constructed way he came out, his distancing himself from the LGBTQ community so he can pander to us (I’m one of you!) while in fact doing harm to more stereotypical gays by re-enforcing the idea through dog whistles that tacit homophobia is still a-okay just since they look past his marriage to a man and vote for him. The sad thing is that I don’t think he understands what he is doing in that regard. I give him an A for effort, but the thing is he hasn’t been out long enough to understand any of these nuances. Further, his Ivy League education, his maleness, his whiteness, and his socioeconomic status mean that he just doesn’t get the struggle.
There are folks of similar backgrounds who DO get it – because they got out there and got into the trenches and educated themselves and really fought alongside the rest of us. Mayor Pete is just not one of them, though.
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