[johnforbes]

As Mayor Pete Buttigieg contended with skyrocketing crime rates in South Bend, Ind., the city’s police department trained officers to combat “sizeism” and “languageism,” according to newly revealed documents.

South Bend’s police department instituted a series of diversity and anti-discrimination training sessions in 2017. The training sessions took place as violent crime surged in the city, reaching the highest level in 20 years in 2018. The training extended far beyond the immediate issues facing the city and instead lectured cops on policing their own language to be sensitive to “isms.”

The training slides for one of the sessions contained a list of nefarious “isms” that allegedly perpetuate prejudice and power dynamics. The denounced “isms” include familiar issues such as racism and sexism along with such topics as “sizeism,” “languageism,” and “materialism.”