In the 1990s, before I had a family of my own, I volunteered in a mentoring program and was paired with a high-school freshman from Harlem whose parents were divorced. We would meet up on weekends to see a movie, visit a museum, or sometimes just grab a meal and chat about how things were going. His mother, a West Indian immigrant, told me that she had signed her son up for the program because she wanted him to have more male role models in his life.

I thought about that experience after Pete Buttigieg came under attack last...