I’m white and don’t wear a puffy jacket or mittens. Most of the people I know who wear puffy jackets are not white. What does it all mean?
The problem isn’t the he is “exercising white privilege”; it is that such a thing exists as a concept at all. Of course, there are real uses of “white privilege” that are actually prejudicial, like excluding non-white people from mortgages and real estate. But this is just someone making a fuss to be heard rather than highlighting a real problem.
And Yahoo! News is just a webscraping algorithm to promote clickbait. That they once hired Katie Couric to give them journalistic credibility tells you how seriously you should take that. You’ll probably get more pertinent news stories from Fark.com.
Stranger
I agree with the article quoted in the OP. My first thought when I saw Sanders at the inauguration, was that it reminded me of Dick Cheney at Auschwitz.
Another big meh for that one as well. So they’re upset his coat wasn’t black?
The people like the person who wrote the article linked in the OP are just looking to find something, anything, they can be “offended” by to use for publicity. Complete idiots, the lot of them.
I guess you’re calling me an idiot, too.
What privilege is at play here? Bernie was invited to the event because he has a career in politics spanning multiple decades including being a viable candidate for the Democratic Party’s bid for the presidency. Privilege is an unearned benefit of some kind and I’m hard pressed to see how Bernie didn’t earn his invitation.
To me, the Cheney thing is more an embarrassment than offensive. Bush’s administration frequently had moments that played out “ugly American” stereotypes, or made us look like infants who don’t know how to behave properly. That would be one of them.
As to the OP, I don’t agree that Sanders did anything wrong or offensive, but I do think there is an element of white privilege that is being disregarded in the haste to dismiss the OP article.
The privilege to not be cold?
This is fake outrage over nothing.
Dear Sith Lord Ingrid Seyer-Ochi:
Let’s have a chat about parkas. Where I come from, Kanukistan, parkas are the people’s winter outer layer. Man, woman, adult child, every race and every ethnicity. Why? Because parkas are practical – they block wind and insulate you but are loose enough to let moisture out. They are durable (mine has 45 years of daily winter use and is still going strong). They are ever so comfy – like nesting in a comforter. Pity you have a bone to pick about being warm outside.
When it’s cold we wear touques and either gloves or mittens (mittens are warmer and double mittens are warmest). Folks often prefer decorative outer mittens to bring something nice into an otherwise utilitarian costume worn when there is less sunshine than in summer months. Pity you have a bone to pick about nice mittens.
Years ago I walked into a restaurant in my parka to pick up an order on a bitterly cold night. The clerk came out from behind the till and glommed onto me, saying in a strong south Asian accent “You look so warm!” He said he had arrived earlier that week, so once he detached himself from me I drew and wrote out PARKA and MITTENS and TOQUE and drew him a map to where he could get a used ones. A week later he was working behind the till in parka and toque. It never occurred to me to accuse him of Asian privilege. I was just glad to see that he was warm. It never occurred to me that I was forcing my white privilege on him. Quite simply, white privilege my lily-white ass. Wearing a parka is everyone’s privilege and practice up here in the Great White. A parka is as egalitarian as it gets. We all wear them – even in public – without being ashamed as you would have us.
Anyone who criticizes an elder for dressing for the weather is a fool with less sense than a snowflake blowing in the wind. And yes, you are certainly a snowflake.
Is Saunders white and privileged? Yes. He is a self-made man who was the child of poor religious minority immigrants living on the income you would expect of a paint salesperson. He raised himself up by his own bootstraps in an education system that was not particularly hostile to people of his background to extreme degree as some education systems in your country are to people of colour, so by all means have a close look at what he has done with his privilege, starting in high school by trying to help Korean War orphans and then fighting decade after decade after decade to brake down barriers of race, gender and class. It’s a pity that you have a problem with that.
Stop denigrating people based on the colour of their skin.
Just stop it. Stop it now.
Start looking a people for who they are.
Stop sniping like the self-promoting privileged numpty that you are, looking to draw attention to your misapplied wokitude, for you’re not disseminating wokeness. You are simply squirting out faux-intellectual diarrhoea all over your students. Clean up your reeking act Ms. Sith Lord.
** clap clap clap **
Stranger
Sanders was dressed perfectly appropriately for a San Francisco summer.
Getting offended over how people dress is definitely a privilege issue–of the person who is offended.
However, I don’t think writing it off as someone who was looking to be offended is the best analysis. I suspect there’s more to it than that–a confluence of factors.
I suspect that what happens in most “looking to be offended” situations is that the person feels offended first, then seeks to justify it. Sometimes it can be offense that someone disagrees. In this case, I suspect it was either popularity backlash or thinking there was too much focus on this guy. This comes across as shallow or weak, so they dig deeper to find flaws.
I also suspect this sort of thing gets rounds in an echo chamber, so that it becomes more intense. In this case, we have a teacher with students, and so there’s a valid reason the students might agree with the person who has been teaching them–whether legitimately in trying to learn, or just for the grades.
Then there’s the pull of being controversial and/or contrarian. To have the debate, to get the views and attention. There is a reason to want to have a view even when you know that it will upset people and that they will find it stupid.
There’s probably more, but I’m pretty sure all of this played in. And then it becomes a rich target for those who wish to complain about PC gone mad or whatever, ignoring that everyone seems to disagree.
It distracts from any legitimate issues that may be present. I could see someone thinking Sanders wasn’t doing anything special and that being why they don’t particularly like the meme. I’ve seen it used for things like racial just ice, for example. And it is oddly commercialized, being used by others unrelated to make money.
There’s some legitimate stuff in there to discuss, but jumping to white privilege and being offended by Sanders actions themselves, or imparting symbolism that was clearly not intended is not the way to discuss any of it.
It actually makes it harder, as now everyone will use this bad criticism to stop any discussion at all.
I HATE Bernie Sanders and what he wore didn’t bother me. I quickly got sick of the Bernie memes but he didn’t have anything to do with that.
I get doubly sick of every holier than thou asshole with a Twitter account blaming everything on white privilege. It’s the laziest shit argument and I won’t even listen to it
This woman has never been to Vermont.
The whitest state in America, proving the point.
So… what do y’all mean by “privilege”? Do you think it’s a bad thing? Most social privilege isn’t a bad thing, it’s the absence of a bad thing.
Privilege means the cop doesn’t shoot you. That should be true of everyone.
Privilege means the plumber takes you seriously and listens to what you say. That should be true of everyone.
Privilege means you can wear sensible clothes in the cold. That ISN’T true of everyone, just like the others. But it SHOULD be true of everyone.
The world would be a better place if we all had all the privileges.
Yes, Bernie absolutely benefited from white male privilege there. (Or old senator who doesn’t have to prove himself privilege.) But it’s a GOOD thing, not a bad thing. The bad thing is that some people wouldn’t have been able to get away with wearing sensible cloths.
That doesn’t sound like a bad theory. Like when some people were upset that Obama wore a brown suit. They weren’t really upset about that they were just pissed off to begin with.
It was a TAN suit, and wearing it mocked the decorum of the office and was a metaphor for the lack of credibility he had as a president and indeed a so-called citizen. No president has ever done anything worse.
Stranger
Personally, I find fashion policing to be yet another way to enforce conformity. Bernie was wearing truth to power!
No, proving that she’s never been there. That’s what Vermonters wear.