I don't think he was trying to dismiss the civil rights era in America either, not intentionally at least, but your tremendously generous interpretation still leaves plenty of room for the idea that he simply didn't bother to think that these movements are:

a)meaningfully connected, as the struggle against capitalism and colonialism in Cuba and the civil rights struggle in the United States and elsewhere clearly were

b)relevant to the world as it presently stands

Item "a" is just obnoxious, but the sort of thing I've gotten used to from exactly his type - people who majored in humanities but actively forget everything they learned when they start to make real money. Which is whatever.

Item "b" is more of a problem because it fails to recognize the ways that the United States has created the context for our own disastrous foreign (and domestic) policy decisions. I care about his casual dismissal of Latin American coups in the 70s and 80s much more than him thoughtlessly forgetting that the civil rights movement was part of a global struggle for freedom during that period because those are literally still occurring. And somebody who finds them to be isolated curiosities when we've, in the last six months, tried to upend Maduro and successfully upended Evo Morales is, at best, an extreme idiot and at worst, a dangerous bad actor.

People who say that our foreign activity in the world over the last fifty years doesn't matter are announcing their intentions to do harm.

>he leans on in a lot of his interviews/townhalls/stump
>speeches etc he was probably trying to make the bigger point
>that folks that the next pres should be focused on the 21st
>century. Like, stop anchoring current politics to politics of
>the past..

Yeah, that framing should be rejected. It's harmful.

>I've probably watched/read
>entirely too much Buttigieg, but I guess its handy for moments
>like this

And probably only these moments. In thirty years, knowing this stuff will be like becoming a scholar on the political wisdom of Larry Agran.