Blinded by the white: Republican Paul Ryan’s dazzlingly Caucasian intern selfie highlights lack of minority staff

US House Speaker Paul Ryan on Saturday posted a picture of himself on Instagram posing in front of a large crowd of young folks. “I think this sets a record for the most number of #CapitolHill interns in a single selfie,” he boasted in a caption.

But the Internet had another superlative for the photo: Whitest. Group. Ever.

“Blinded by the #white,” was one Instagrammer’s take on the nearly universally Caucasian crowd. The photo was shared on social media with the hashtag #GOPSoWhite, a riff on the #OscarsSoWhite campaign last year.

It’s unclear whether the interns pictured were all Republicans or whether it was a bipartisan group, and Ryan’s office did not return emails seeking clarification. The Daily Mail said the event - a speech titled “Interns Today, Leaders Tomorrow” - was sponsored by the House Republican Conference, and was mostly, though not exclusively, attended by interns working for Republican offices on Capitol Hill. A spokesperson for the conference did not immediately respond.

The picture only highlighted what’s obvious on Capitol Hill - a dearth of minority staffers. Each office - those of all 535 members of Congress as well as assorted committees - hires its own staff, and there’s no centralised tracking of hires. One of the only studies to look at minority hiring in the Capitol found that just 7.1 per cent of top Senate staffers were non-white, though minorities represent 36 per cent of the population.

Interns make up the pool of people often hired for junior jobs on the Hill , and who eventually move up the ranks to powerful jobs. Ryan himself was an intern for his home-state senator.