Following the inauguration, there was one thing that was really bringing Americans together, and that thing, or person I should say, was Bernie Sanders.

You already know what I’m talking about, don’t you?

I’m, of course, referring to the picture of Sanders sitting at the inauguration in his coat and warm mittens.

People went crazy and there were likely thousands upon thousands of memes that were created, and they were absolutely amazing! I had such a good time looking at them all. I even made a few myself.

Those mittens sure drew a lot of attention.

“We’ve been studying diversity and discrimination in the United States; my students were ready. What did they see? They saw a white man in a puffy jacket and huge mittens, distant not only in his social distancing, but in his demeanor and attire,” University of California-Berkeley professor Ingrid Seyer-Ochi wrote.

“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,” she added.

That’s not all though…

Seyer-Ochi, though, saw Sanders’ appearance as an insult, and while she draws a distinction between Sanders and the rioters who attacked the United States Capitol on January 6th, it’s a distinction, she says, without a difference.

“Sen. Sanders is no white supremacist insurrectionist,” she wrote. “But he manifests privilege, white privilege, male privilege and class privilege, in ways that my students could see and feel.”

“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,” she concludes.

Is everything that white people do and have an act of white privilege or white supremacy? Of course, he manifests white and male privilege…just as Hillary Clinton showed up with her white female privilege. And Barack Obama showed up with his black and male privilege. I could go on and on. There is a benefit to each sort of category of people in different situations and in different environments.

Photo Credit: AFP via Getty Images