The OK Hand Symbol is RACIST??!!?!??!

For years, it's been a meme that leftists think the OK Hand sign is a white supremacist signal. Nuance is entirely lost on this debate, and I would like to go over it.

Art and symbolism is subjective.

Each of us can look at a painting and see something totally different. We create symbols to have certain meanings. The little 4-square Windows Key on a Microsoft keyboard might be a relevant example to you. Someone unfamiliar with computers would not understand what it is, even if they guess that it represents a window.

Microsoft doesn't own the concept of windows, but for me personally, this symbol is Microsoft's. It's not just a generic window.

Sometimes people take a symbol, and use it... for anything.

It can be as isolated as three kids doing a secret handshake. This means something to them, it symbolizes their friendship, their common bond. An adult might see their strange movements and crook an eye. They might see the kids were doing some kind of secret handshake, and they could even watch every specific gesture, but someone not in that bond will not feel the same kinship from it.

The Swastika Question

Allow me to present you with a rather blatant example. We're going to get a little more intense. Hope you don't get whiplash from this hard-right turn!

Let's say you're at some kind of political gathering, like a protest. If you saw a group of people walking down the street, one of them with a Nazi flag - like, the actual Swastika on red background with the black bars. If you saw the flag of the Germany Nazi Party, and someone said, "Hey, look, a Nazi!" How would you react?

A) No! That's just a sweet Indian , actually. I read about it in a BBC article! The Nazis took the symbol, and it actually means "well-being" in Sanskrit

B) I have never seen a swastika and would just think it's a random flag

C) Huh. Yeah, someone is walking around with a Nazi flag. That's f**ked up.

If you answered A, the point might've been lost on you, and I'm really sorry. Reply down below and we can talk about it!

If you answered B, I fabricated your existence to make a point. You could be perfectly, honestly ignorant to the fact that Nazis had taken an ancient symbol and used it to represent their horrors as a political party and nation during one of the most brutal periods of recorded human history. Your ignorance doesn't invalidate what we know about the symbol.

Back to the OK Hand.

People on 4chan posted memes with different variations of this basic content: "Heh, let's use the OK Hand sign and everyone will think it's a white nationalist hand sign, Heh Heh silly liberals."

Then, some well-known white nationalists like Nick Fuentes and Richard Spencer began picking up the symbol. The Christchurch shooter flashed the OK hand in court after murdering 49 people at 2 Mosques in New Zealand. More recently, the Kenosha shooter was caught on camera using the sign while taking pictures in a bar, with the Proud Boys anthem serenading them from the background.

Some journalists pointed out, "Hey, look, 4chan said it was a white nationalist symbol as a joke, but now it kind of actually is?" 4chan, being he font of logic and reason, went bananas over this. "SEE? THEY DID THE THING WE SAID! HAHA LIBERALS"

Was the original post a joke, genuinely laughing at the absurdity of appropriating symbols? We can't know the intent of the anonymous user who posted it, but its impact to the world WAS to adopt the symbol into a dog whistle. This phenomenon is so named for its ability to go unnoticed by those not in the know, as a dog whistle can't be picked up by the comparatively limited frequency range of the human ear.

To reiterate, a symbol isn't inherently bad. Making the OK Hand gesture does not a Nazi make. It's never been a common gesture in my life, but I've seen people use the OK Hand symbol a few times with no political context, because they just grew up doing it.

These things are cultural and subjective.

In Germany, it's still illegal in many cases for someone to display swastikas and SS insignia runes, like those on World War 2 Nazi uniforms. I'm sure somewhere in the world, people use all the ancient Indian symbols, including the one which was appropriated by the Nazis, with no hint of either irony or disgust. That's fine, too.

Will the OK hand sign continue to escalate into some kind of hate sign itself? Maybe.

White nationalist hate crimes and violence is on the rise in the United States. Irrational nationalist rhetoric, not unlike that used by Hitler in the 1920s, is growing in popularity across the world.

These people exist in the real world with us, and they can adopt and use the symbols and ideas that we share, even if we don't agree with them. If you want your children to have a positive OK Hand symbol, instead of a racist terrorist gesture, then you must forge the path to that future with knowledge of context and explicit anti-racism!