Where white lives matter: Paul Ryan mocked for selfie with more than 100 House interns - with barely a minority in sight 

Paul Ryan's recent selfie with more than a hundred Capitol Hill interns has swept the internet - but not for the reason he was hoping.

The GOP speaker posted a picture on Instagram captioned: 'I think this sets a record for the most number of interns in a single selfie.'

But the photo has sparked outrage because the House hopefuls are overwhelmingly white. In fact, just three people of color can be seen in the entire picture of more than 100 interns. 

The photograph has been widely mocked online for its 'embarrassing' lack of diversity with commenters even comparing it to a Where's Waldo? puzzle.

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The GOP speaker posted a picture on Instagram captioned: 'I think this sets a record for the most number of interns in a single selfie'

One Twitter user wrote: 'That picture of Paul Ryan with the GOP interns is so white that I had to put on sunglasses to look directly at it.' 

Instagram user rikkiforrest simply asked 'why is everyone WHITE?' while another wrote 'Good lord! That is embarrassing- NO diversity !!!wow!'

Other social media users compared the photo to a scene from Where's Waldo? 

Thatsmetiffany wrote: 'This is like where's Waldo. I think I see one Black person. Right side, toward the back. Looks like he/she doesn't want to be there. That, in itself, says a lot.'

Matthew Cherry said on Twitter: 'Finding a POC in this image is like playing Where's Waldo. I did manage to find one tho.' Mike Rylander added: 'The Internship program for the US House of Representatives is whiter than Idaho. #InternsSoWhite.'

Others have posted mocking pictures, replacing the interns with jars of white mayonnaise or crackers. 

One Instagram user sarcastically wrote: 'There's a bunch of diversity here...blondes, brunettes, red hea---...oh sorry, no red heads. But look at blue, white, and red scarfs, shirts, and ties.'

And nycalfredo said: 'Another attempt at deceiving the public FAILED. SO glad the GOP is catastrophically failing and revealing the fraud that it is.' 

 

Others have posted mocking pictures replacing the interns with mayonnaise or crackers over the lack of diversity 

The event was held in the Capitol Building, on July 14, as part of a summer GOP intern seminar titled 'Interns Today, Leaders Tomorrow' arranged by the House Republican Conference.

While the 'overwhelming majority' of the 150-200 who attended were Republican, the session was open to everyone and sources at the event report there were also several Democratic interns in attendance. 

Republican intern Emily Larsen, 19, of Boise, Idaho, defended the seminar saying it that money, not race, was the reason that there were almost no minorities at the event. 

'Neither the GOP or the Democratic offices are intentionally seeking to fill their internship spots with white college students,' she told DailyMail.com.

'These are just the students that overwhelmingly apply. They apply because they are statistically in a better financial situation to invest thousands of dollars into the expenses associated with an unpaid internship. 

'The real issue is money, not race.'  

Congress has long been criticized over its lack of diversity. Currently, less than one-in-five members of the House and Senate are a racial or ethnic minority, compared to the 36 per cent of people of color who make up the US population.

White people still account for 83 per cent of Congress membership, while they only make up 63 per cent of the population. 

And the gap is widening as even though diversity among congressional members is growing, it cannot keep pace with the changing population.

Currently, around 35 per cent of the nation's black population is represented by a congressional representative who is black, while just 22 per cent of Hispanics, 12 per cent of Asians and 8 per cent of Native Americans are represented by someone of the same racial or ethnic group

The picture is said to show that the Party's so-called 'minority outreach' goals, proposed after the 2012 electoral defeat, are failing.

The criticism comes after a recent poll revealed that zero per cent of African-Americans in Ohio and Pennsylvania would vote for Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. 

One twitter user wrote: 'That picture of Paul Ryan with the GOP interns is so white that I had to put on sunglasses to look directly at it'

People complained about the lack of diversity among the Capitol Hill interns, with one describing it as a 'sea of white'

In Ohio, where Trump and Clinton are tied, 11 percent of the 848 registered voters in the poll were African American, and they broke for Clinton, 88 percent to 0 percent.

And in Pennsylvania, where Clinton was ahead by nine points, 10 percent of the 829 voters are African American, and they went for Clinton, 91 percent to 0 percent.

Ryan has previously criticized Trump after he claimed an American-born judge was biased against him because of his Mexican heritage, describing it as 'the textbook definition of racist comments.'

'I do absolutely disavow his comments I think they're wrong,' Ryan said last month, according to the Washington Post. But he said he will still support Trump because his agenda is more likely to get enacted under him than Democrat Hillary Clinton.  

MailOnline has contacted the Republican Party for comment. DailyMail.com has also reached out to Speaker Paul Ryan.