A California high school teacher blasted Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders for allegedly flaunting his “white privilege” during President Joe Biden’s inauguration in a Monday op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle.
“Sen. Sanders is no white supremacist insurrectionist,” Ingrid Seyer-Ochi wrote. “But he manifests privilege, white privilege, male privilege and class privilege, in ways that my students could see and feel.”
“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.” https://t.co/uyAGMpAuR9
— SFChronicle Opinion (@sfc_opinions) February 1, 2021
A photo of Sanders looking “grumpy chic” went viral during the inauguration and over the following week. Sanders was dressed in a taupe coat, grey pants and large mittens. Seyer-Ochi said she “puzzled and fumed” over this, opening her op-ed by identifying the pro-Trump rioters that stormed the Capitol building Jan. 6 “white supremacists.”
“We analyzed the images of that historic day, images of white men storming through the Capitol, fearless and with no forces to stop them,” Seyer-Ochi wrote. “This … is white supremacy, this is white privilege. It can be hard to pinpoint, but when we see, it, we know it.'”
Seyer-Ochi then argued that Sanders‘ “puffy jacket and huge mittens” signaled his own white privilege. (RELATED: Bernie Sanders Viral Inauguration Look Helped Raise $1.8 Million For Charity)
“We talked about gender and the possible meanings of the attire chosen by Vice President Kamala Harris, Dr. Jill Biden, the Biden grandchildren, Michelle Obama, Amanda Gorman and others,” Seyer-Ochi wrote. “We referenced the female warriors inspiring these women, the colors of their educational degrees and their monochromatic ensembles of pure power.”
“And there, across all of our news and social media feeds, was Bernie: Bernie memes, Bernie sweatshirts, endless love for Bernie,” Seyer-Ochi continued in the op-ed. “I puzzled and fumed as an individual as I strove to be my best possible teacher.”
“The blindness I see, of so many (Bernie included), to the privileges Bernie represents,” Seyer-Ochi continued. “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. Unless those same folk had privilege. Which they don’t.”
Seyer-Ochi took heat for her argument. Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald criticized the teacher for her “appalling article.” The Hill’s Krystal Ball mocked the op-ed by claiming that Sanders has been “attacked for being too fancy, and not fancy enough.”
What a stupid and appalling article: all based on how Bernie dressed. As stupid and gross as it is, it represents a large and growing sector of left-liberal thought: https://t.co/ogWOwJ7HoL
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 1, 2021
Wait so Bernie has now been attacked for being too fancy, and not fancy enough, all while wearing the exact same nondescript winter coat?? ????????♀️????
— Krystal Ball (@krystalball) February 1, 2021