Bernie Sanders Accused Of Racism For Holding Fried Chicken

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has had to endure an abundance of criticism during

his two attempts to enter the Oval Office, such as the cost of his major policy proposals (Medicare For All, $15/hr minimum wage or Universal Childcare etc) and those are legitimate concerns to have and you would hope that Sanders could answer those questions.

However, should you spend far too much time on social media like I do, you’ll soon notice the anti-Sanders enclaves that will use anything and everything, no matter how ridiculous, to hinder his presidential chances - including using the image above to suggest he’s either racially insensitive or just a racist in general. 

As you can see, Sanders is pictured above posing for a photo with a black man while Bernie holds the fried chicken that, we assume, the man cooked. And I don’t see a problem here. Should I? Because I don’t. I could stare at this picture and literally just see two dudes smiling and holding a piece of chicken. 

Should you be part of those anti-Bernie enclaves and you’re searching for anything that will bury this apparently extremely bigoted man, I can maybe see how the “LOOK HE’S HOLDING CHICKEN NEXT TO A BLACK MAN” could work. 

However, there’s a pretty simple story behind the image: the man with Bernie is a supporter, Javier Dykes. Javier is the owner of a café called Red Beans and Rice Jazz Café based in Columbia, South Carolina and they’re posing for a photograph with the food Javier has prepared. 

Here’s a picture Javier himself posted on his personal Twitter account (@JavierDykes), which since the time of posting Javier has pinned the image to the top of his profile and has added a comment saying “#2020winner”. 

In the picture you can see what I assume is chicken to their right and beans to their left, and Sanders obviously held up the chicken in the picture to suggest that Javier can cook excellent food. I mean, he could of held the beans up to the camera but then I’m sure we would all be commenting on his mental capacity.