HOW IT STARTED: Military Investigating Possible White Power Hand Signal at Army-Navy Game.
Though it resembles an innocuous “okay” sign, the symbol has developed among far-right circles on the internet as a way to signal to others familiar with the imagery of white power, while obscuring the intent in layers of irony. Memes like this symbol “mean to provoke or offend, and the meaning can come later,” Dr. Cynthia Miller-Idriss, an American University professor specializing in far-right youth extremism, told the Times earlier this year, when the hand gesture was designated a hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation League.
Though the ADL warns that that “someone who uses the symbol cannot be assumed to be using the symbol in either a trolling or, especially, white supremacist context unless other contextual evidence exists to support the contention,” it has also been embraced by violent white nationalists, like the Christchurch shooter who threw the sign at his first court appearance after killing 50 people at two New Zealand mosques.
—New York magazine, December 15th, 2019.
How It’s Going:
Did you catch what Photoshopped Beyoncé is flashing in the lower right-hand corner?
In September of 2019, the Daily Wire reported “Anti-Defamation League Cedes ‘OK’ Hand Gesture To White Supremacists.”
And now the calls for segregation are coming from inside the house! Kamala Harris campaign creating ‘space’ for ‘white dudes’ to ‘be honest’ about role in history.
As Glenn noted in December of 2019 when Rolling Stone got the vapors because someone at the Army-Navy game flashed the OK sign, “The 4Chan trollers have scored again. I remember when ’culture jamming’ was a lefty thing, but the lefty culture jammers never scored at this level.”
So is the left done with this ridiculous attack on the right, or will it magically reappear if Trump wins in November?