US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is standing by his belief that racism was 'obviously' built into America's roads and bridges on Sunday but insists he wasn't trying to 'make American feel guilty.'
The former Indiana mayor was asked about the right's caustic reaction to his comments during an interview with MNSBC's The Sunday Show in Baltimore, Maryland.
'What we’re doing is we are reconnecting people who may have been disconnected or divided by discriminatory decisions in the past - that helps everybody,' Buttigieg said.
'That helps everybody. I don’t know why anybody would be against reconnecting people who have been divided by discriminatory decisions in the past.'
He argued that the department he oversees has both a 'moral' and a 'practical' responsibility to combat racial inequity while rolling out President Joe Biden's infrastructure agenda.
'I bring this up not to wallow in it, not to make people feel bad about mistakes of the past, but because now we have the chance to do something about it.'
'The point is not to make America feel guilty,' the official said. 'The point is to make America better and more equitable and more effective in moving people to where they need to go.'
Buttigieg said the Transportation Department has a 'practical' and 'moral' obligation to fix inequities in America's roadways and public transit
'The point of transportation is to connect, so if transportation was ever used to divide, we have a responsibility - a moral one but also a very practical one - to fix it.'
He said Baltimore - and the country - could 'do better' for people who rely on public transit - who he said were mostly people of color.
'We can do better, especially for people who don't have cars, who are disproportionally residents of color,' Buttigieg said. 'It hurts no one to tell the truth and do something about it.'
In 2020 roughly 60 percent of regular public transit users were from minority communities, according to Pew Research Center. However, white or caucasian riders make up the largest single racial demographic at 40 percent.
Buttigieg said he would focus Transportation Department reforms on tackling racism in April, when he told theGrio that 'There is racism physically built into some of our highways.'
'That's why the jobs plan has specifically committed to reconnect some of the communities that were divided by these dollars,' Buttigieg said.
Earlier this month he was asked about his plan to 'deconstruct the racism that was
