Stupidity comes in all sizes. Sometimes it is custom tailored to fit.
Such is the case of San Francisco high school teacher and leftist writer Ingrid Seyer-Ochi.
On Monday Seyer-Ochi donned a special stupid suit of her own after penning an op-ed piece for the San Francisco Chronicle. In it she criticized and analyzed non-conformist socialist fashionista Sen. Bernie Sanders and his choice of Inaugural day dress up.
The essay was titled “S.F. high school students get a lesson in subtle white privilege.” She described the discussion she and her students had about the recent presidential inauguration and who wore what. According to the opinions of Seyer’s-Ochi and her students who were “guided” to think like their teacher, Senator Sanders’ did not make the best dressed list.
“I puzzled and fumed as an individual as I strove to be my best possible teacher. What did I see? What did I think my students should see? 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.”
There is a saying that clothes make the man. In Sanders’ case, his clothes – a puffy jacket and clown mittens – are what helped transform the Senator into the poster boy for “white privilege, male privilege and class privilege.”
It is hard to argue that Sanders is not male, and he certainly is white. Tan is something Vermonters usually are not since Vermont is a state that is cold most of the time. Class privilege? I am no fan of Senator Sanders, but in my opinion, the guy was simply sitting in the back of stage on a cold hard folding chair looking a little miserable and left out.
I am sure Bernie Sanders, when he was just a 23-year-old student himself pursuing a degree in political science, never dreamed that one day he would end up not only accused of manifesting privilege but endlessly meme’d for the crime of dressing sensibly.
Although Twitter users and the media did their best to dress up this story as newsworthy, it is worth wondering why would the San Francisco Chronicle even bother publishing an op-ed piece like this?
The First Amendment would be a logical answer but there may be a better one.
By now, if you have clicked on some of the links above, you will notice how you are unable to get into the article. Why?
In a word, the answer is paywall.
In other words, you cannot read the article for yourself without paying for it.
Simple lesson in math here students. Articles like this and they attention they garner are worth their weight in gold – for the newspapers who run them and then restrict access to content in order to increase revenue.
I digress. If I am the getting the correct gist of what Seyer-Ochi wrote from what others wrote about the op-ed, it becomes clear that once again leftists have no problem happily feeding on their own. That includes not only the young but the old as well. This time teacher and students alike chose Bernie Sanders as their main course. In order to espouse an unholy trinity of white, male and class privilege, they cooked up a tasty stew of woke words.
In her op-ed Seyer-Ochi is quoted as saying how many people without privilege would not be able to dress like Sanders did on such an occasion as Biden’s inauguration.
“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,” Seyer-Ochi said.
The logic of the left often escapes me and Seyer-Ochi’s brand of logis is no exception. Since when does old white guy hunkered down in a puffy coat and mittens scream racist misogynist?
It seems to me that faced with a choice of keeping warm or freezing your underprivileged ass off, plenty of poor or working class, not to mention females, would have no problem at all showing up looking like an advertisement for North Face or Carhartt.
Show up at the inauguration of our 46th president dressed like Bozo the clown wearing a wig and floppy shoes, and sure, you probably would find it a bit of a struggle to be taken seriously.
Show up dressed like Bernie, however, and the worst that should happen is you get taken for a crazy, senior citizen Vermont hipster. No matter how ridiculous they look, when people get old, they dress the way they want to thank you very much even if that includes extra-large mitts and a sour puss.
Critical Race Theory aside, Seyer-Ochi and her students might be better served taking a page from Vogue magazine and learning a simple lesson in what fashion can teach us about life. Even if it is just about the Bernie Sanders new winter collection line, there is something to be said for relaxed elegance.
Or maybe the teacher and her students should just take a moment to reflect on the words of what fashion maven meme Bernie Sanders said about himself. “I was just sitting there trying to keep warm, trying to pay attention to what was going on.”
