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Problematic Mittens
Ingrid Seyer-Ochi is wrong about Bernie’s “white male privilege”
After Joe Biden took the oath of office on January 20, he delivered an inaugural address that centered on the importance of bipartisan “unity.” This, he suggested, was as important to him as emancipation had been to Abraham Lincoln.
The speech was delivered to a small crowd of politicians wearing masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The event was protected by fences and a vast military deployment following a riot that interrupted the certification of the election results two weeks prior.
The single image from this strange and dismal event that most captured the public imagination was the runner-up from the Democratic nomination contest. Like nearly everyone else there, Senator Bernie Sanders was wearing a mask — and he’s a veteran of enough Vermont winters to know how to bundle up in cold weather. Put that together with what many observers read as an expression of bored irritation (the mask makes it hard to tell but then again Bernie does seem to go through life with that in general) and the effect of the juxtaposition between that image and the rest of the event was jarring — and, to a vast number of ordinary people, very funny.
He was dressed, as one of the first memes I saw put it, like “the inauguration was part of his…
