A San Francisco high school teacher wrote an Op-ed claiming that Senator Bernie Sanders “expresses privilege” for wearing his tenure suit that evokes memes.
Ingrid Seyer-Ochi, a former professor at UC Berkeley, wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle that the Vermont senator’s choice for recycled wool gloves was integrated into his class discussion of diversity and discrimination in the United States.
Initially, on Opening Day, Seyer-Ochi said his class spoke about the deeper meanings of the historic day – including “the vulnerability of democracy” and “the power of ritual” and gender.
Sanders, said the professor, was not even on their radar until it became an instant sensation on the Internet with his gloves and brown parka.
“I got confused and irritated as an individual as I struggled to be my best teacher possible. What I saw? What did I think my students should see? ”Seyer-Ochi wrote.
“A rich white man, incredibly well educated and privileged, appearing for perhaps the most important ritual of the decade, wearing a fluffy jacket and huge gloves.”
The senator, she said, “manifests privilege, white privilege, male privilege and class privilege, in ways that my students can see and feel.”
Seyer-Ochi said in the article that many people without privileges could not dress as Sanders did on such an occasion.
“I don’t know many poor people, either from the working class, or women, or people struggling to be taken seriously who would appear in the possession of our 46th president dressed as Bernie,” she said.
The article left many people on social media scratching their heads.
“So Bernie represents the terrible privilege of the rich and white because he * reads the article * does not wear expensive clothes,” wrote a commentator on Twitter.
“Apparently, it is a privilege to dress comfortably and NOT a privilege to wear expensive designer clothes while the media talks about sets as if it were a red carpet event,” commented another Twitter user.
A third person wrote on Twitter: “The only ‘privilege’ I see now is being able to publish a bad-faith opinion article in a paid-access newspaper,” wrote a Twitter commentator.