Pete Buttigieg campaign uses a stock shot of a black woman to illustrate his plan to battle racial inequality in the US – only for her to reveal she is from KENYA where the picture was taken
- The Pete for America site used the stock image to illustrate the Douglass Plan
- Woman in the photo is from Kenya and is ‘confused’ about why she is pictured
- The image has since been removed from the Buttigieg 2020 campaign website
Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign used a photo of a Kenyan woman to promote his plan to help black Americans, it has emerged.
The Pete for America website used the stock image of a black woman and child to illustrate the candidate’s Douglass Plan.
However, the woman in the photo is from Kenya and has since voiced ‘confusion’ about why her picture was used at all.
‘What’s the meaning of the message accompanied by the photo? Have no idea of what’s happening,’ she told a reporter from The Intercept.
Under fire: Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg (pictured) has been criticized after his campaign used a picture of a Kenyan woman to promote his plan to help black Americans
Stock photo: The image which appeared on a page about the Douglass Plan on the Buttigieg campaign website until it was removed
The image has since been removed from the Buttigieg campaign website.
The woman explained that she had agreed to pose for the picture, but did not expect it to become a readily available stock image.
The picture is available on free stock photography website Pexels, where a caption explains that it was taken in Kenya.
Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who has endorsed Bernie Sanders in the 2020 race, has already criticized the use of the picture.
‘This is not ok or necessary,’ she wrote on Twitter on Sunday evening.
The picture even drew attention in Kenyan media where the website Citizen Digital covered the backlash against Buttigieg.
‘Could a Google image search have saved Mayor Pete’s campaign team from this blunder?,’ asked one Twitter user.
Another social media user branded it ‘tone deaf reckless ignorance and laziness’.
Buttigieg has enjoyed a second surge in the polls in recent weeks and some surveys have shown him in the lead in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucus.
Free to use: The picture is available on stock photography website Pexels, where a caption explains that it was taken in Kenya
Correction: The image has since been removed from the Buttigieg campaign website
However, concerns over his ability to win over black voters have surfaced more than once during the campaign.
The Douglass Plan has already attracted controversy after black leaders suggested their support for it had been misquoted.
The Buttigieg campaign shared a letter from more than 400 South Carolina voters backing the plan.
But state lawmaker Ivory Thigpen, who has endorsed Bernie Sanders, told The Intercept that the letter was ‘not an accurate representation of where I stand’.
Columbia city councilwoman Tameika Devine, who also signed the letter, later clarified that she was only backing the plan, not Buttigieg’s candidacy.
The plan, named after abolitionist Frederick Douglass, calls for a range of policies including criminal justice reform and greater ‘celebration of black history’.
The South Bend mayor has also ‘committed to creating a commission to propose reparations policies to Congress’, according to his website.
On top of that, a South Bend police officer shot and killed a black man in June with his body camera not switched on.
Buttigieg was heckled and booed at an angry meeting of South Bend residents in the wake of the shooting.