How People of Color Inside the Buttigieg Campaign Sought to Be Heard

In early December, more than 100 members of Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign staff gathered at the South Bend City Church a mile from headquarters for a mandatory half-day retreat about diversity and inclusion. Less than two months remained before the start of voting, a time when most campaigns are focused full-time on politics.

Buttigieg advisers say the retreat was part of an ongoing effort to foster a progressive culture that empowered employees of color. For some of these staff members, however, the workplace itself was a problem, and working for a candidate with so little support from black and Hispanic voters had become demoralizing.

In interviews, current and former staff members of color said they believed that senior Buttigieg officials didn’t listen to their concerns and ideas about the campaign. One said there was a daily “emotional weight” on people of color who felt they were employed in order to help the campaign meet its ambitious diversity targets. Some Hispanic employees said managers asked them to translate text even if they didn’t speak Spanish, making them feel disrespected.

One of Mr. Buttigieg’s biggest challenges has been to broaden his appeal beyond his overwhelmingly white base of voters, and his campaign’s efforts to build a diverse staff represented a step in that direction. But he has yet to make significant gains, and his staff members have spent time wrestling with their own interpersonal relations in the workplace.

A follow-up meeting nearly two weeks after the retreat — organized by staff members and attended by about 70 people — became emotional, according to two people who were present. Some employees of color spoke about feeling disrespected by white colleagues. Others said they felt stressed from having to answer questions from friends and family members about working for a candidate struggling with minority voters, the two people said.

A second meeting, on Jan. 2, featured lengthy discussions of the importance of diversity in hiring and sometimes tearful descriptions of the difficulty of recruiting people of color to the staff, according to a recording of the session that was provided to The New York Times.