He did it again. It appears that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is deaf and blind. After tweeting a selfie of himself with a roomful of all white GOP Capitol Hill interns earlier this week, he did it again, despite the criticism received after the first.
Social media had a hey-day with Ryan’s first tweet. What’s more is that it was quickly answered by a quite contrasting Democratic Party intern selfie, showing a much more diverse group.
This time he tweeted a shot of himself with about twenty GOP legislator volunteers whom he thanks for their efforts. And again, there are speculations about the presence of maybe ONE slightly brown person, however, this second shot communicates the same message as the first. GOP is white, white, white. It’s white as a loaf of Wonder Bread with no intentions of going whole wheat any time soon.
It’s not surprising that the comments were quick to note that this was a repeat offense.
Will he stop now? Only time will tell. However, given the recent GOP spewing of racist comments, any chance that he’ll come down to Earth and notice that people different from him also live in this country is unlikely.
It’s a Party-Wide Issue
From Iowa Rep. Steven King’s comments about which “sub-groups” contributed “more to civilization” than white people to Republican Candidate Donald Trump’s constant bashing of black people and immigrants, the party seems to have drawn its line.
From hereon out, if Ryan does post himself with a more diverse group of republicans, it would be because he sought them out and pulled them together for a photo-op. The comments and criticism that he received is a result of a party wide problem. Republican rhetoric and legislation are not working for this country and to represent those who live here. We are a diverse nation, full of all kinds of people. We all come from immigrants – some more recently than others. We all need to live together and work for our common good. Is representing only part of the nation, the white nation, going to achieve unity and benefits for all? I think we can safely say, “no.”
Image via the original tweet.
