JOE Biden’s inauguration ceremony as the 46th President of the United States was a generally celebratory affair, or as celebratory as an event during a pandemic could be.
Overshadowing just about everything from the event, such as the sober-minded speeches and the musical performances, was Vermont senator Bernie Sanders’s casual outfit and general mood.
It became an instant meme and was soon plastered all over the Internet. Catching a glimpse of the meme was nigh unavoidable.
However, as with many things that gain a surge of popularity, there was a backlash, well if you can call a solitary voice ‘backlash’.
A public high school teacher in San Francisco in the state of California, named Ingrid Seyer-Ochi, wrote an op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday that quickly went viral.
Seyer-Ochi objected to the “privilege, white privilege, male privilege and class privilege” symbolized by the senator’s choice of a relatively casual Burton snowboarding jacket and wool mittens.
This was in contrast to the subdued yet fashionable clothing favoured by most of the attendees. Some were especially dressed to impress, including Vice President Kamala Harris’s stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff who managed to snag a modelling contract.
Seyer-Ochi said her students were upset by what they saw as the implicit message being delivered by Sanders’s outfit.
“What did I see? What did I think my students should see? A wealthy, incredibly well-educated and -privileged white man, showing up for perhaps the most important ritual of the decade, in a puffy jacket and huge mittens.
“I don’t know many poor, or working class, or female, or struggling-to-be-taken-seriously folk who would show up at the inauguration of our 46th president dressed like Bernie.”
Before the inauguration, Seyer-Ochi had also had her students analyze images from the January 6 violent attack by supporters of former President Donald Trump at the US Capitol building.
“This,” she told her students, “is white supremacy, this is white privilege. It can be hard to pinpoint, but when we see it, we know it.”
“I mean in no way to overstate the parallels. Sen. Sanders is no white supremacist insurrectionist. But he manifests privilege, white privilege, male privilege and class privilege, in ways that my students could see and feel,” Seyer-Ochi wrote.
Sanders has not responded to the editorial, but he has harnessed the memes for good, raising almost US$2 million for various causes, such as Meals on Wheels, Feeding Chittenden, the Vermont Parent Child Center Network, the Chill Foundation, the Bi-State Primary Care Association and senior centers.
With the Democratic Party having taken control of the US Senate, Sanders will serve as the incoming chair of the Senate Budget Committee, through which he will hope to enact a progressive agenda. – The Vibes, February 2, 2021
