#BernieMadeMeWhite

Submission 14,660

Part of a series on Bernie Sanders. [View Related Entries]

About

#BernieMadeMeWhite is a hashtag used to joke about the media's representation of Bernie Sanders supporters as Caucasian during the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary. The hashtag became popular after media reports of Sanders victories depicted diverse states, including Hawaii, as being "white and rural."

Origin

On March 26th, 2016, Bernie Sanders won the Democratic Caucuses in Washington, Hawaii, and Alaska. In his article on the victories, CNN's Chris Moody wrote:^[1]

These caucus states -- largely white and rural -- are the type of places Sanders traditionally does well. In order to win the nomination, he must replicate this success in other, more ethnically diverse states that hold primaries, as he did in Michigan last month.

Many online took offense at the statement, especially residents of Hawaii, where the white non-hispanic population is just 26.7% according to the United States Census.^[2] In one Twitter exchange about the remarks the following day, Twitter user tokyobrainstorming (Real name: Leslie Lee III),^[3] wrote that ever since he had voted for Sanders, he had become so white that he was "bingewatching Friends."^[4] He also used the hashtag #BernieMadeMeWhite; the tweet was retweeted 668 times and favorited over 1,900 times.

Spread

Shortly after tokyobrainstorming's tweet became popular, user Chris420Redmond tweeted the hashtag along with two screenshots from CNN – one of the above text, and one from two months earlier, calling Alaska, specifically Anchorage, the "most diverse place in America" – this tweet received 1,000 retweets and almost 1,000 likes.

At 5:37 pm, user welknett posted a tweet reading "This isn't a picture of two friends, it's actually a before and after voting for Bernie pic," along with a photograph of a black woman and a white woman embracing. This tweet received 2,074 retweets and 4,688 likes.

As of 8:25 pm, according to Trendinalia, the hashtag #BernieMadeMeWhite was the top trending topic in the United States, and the 10th top trending topic that day. It was the 47th top trending topic the next day, on March 28th, 2016. The hashtag was covered by NPR, Salon, and the Washington Post, among other major news outlets; notably, it was absent from CNN.