The Washington Post had a front-page story this week on Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg’s “long quest to bridge racial gap,” as the print headline put it.

The online title: “Inside Pete Buttigieg’s years-long, and often clumsy, quest to understand the black experience.”

You get the idea.

According to the Post article, the surprise 2020 contender’s struggle to connect with African Americans goes back to his college days.

Even though the piece tops 3,000 words — a novel in the world of newspapers — one crucial factor is hardly mentioned. Given that this is GetReligion, it probably won’t take you long to guess what.

If you’ll forgive me for sounding like a broken record, I’ll refer back to a post I wrote earlier this month asking, “Serious question: Is Buttigieg being gay a reason for his low support among black voters in the South?”

In that post, I noted:

The stories get into poverty and other crucial issues, but I’m going to focus on a specific point raised in all three articles: the connection, if any, between Buttigieg’s sexual orientation and his low support among black voters in the Bible Belt.

I keep waiting for a major newspaper reporter (perhaps a Godbeat pro is available?) to explore that question. So far, it hasn’t happened. Or if it has, I missed it (in which case I’d welcome a link).

As for the Post story, it offers some interesting anecdotes on Buttigieg’s life experiences with African Americans, opening with his time as an intern for a black reporter in Chicago: