Newsweek reports.
“I want to be clear that we are not making any presumptions about students’ intent in using the gesture,” [Superintendent Joylynn] Pruitt-Adams wrote. “Regardless of intent, however, there is a real and negative impact. Many students, not only our students of color, experience this gesture as a symbol of white supremacy. Potentially subjecting our students to this trauma is simply not acceptable.
“We are concerned that the gesture will become more closely associated with White supremacy in the future. Publishing the photos in question could not only harm students today but could subject students to potentially a lifetime of questions or penalty from colleges, employers, etc.”
As reported by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the OK hand gesture being linked to white supremacy started as a trolling campaign by users on the controversial message board 4Chan. The “Operation O-KKK” campaign was launched to trick people into thinking the gesture—frequently used by President Donald Trump during his public speaking—was meant to promote white supremacy as the fingers spell out WP (white power).
"The 'OK' symbol hoax was so widespread in the spring and summer of 2017 that a number of people on the far right began deliberately to use the gesture—typically making the sign while posing for photographs uploaded to social media—in order to continue the trolling and spread it further,” noted the ADL....
Pruitt-Adams sounds completely lucid. The effect on the observer matters — OK may
be experienced as a white power statement — and the students doing the gesturing — even if they just meant "okay" — could find their reputations damaged in the future. And yet the "OK" sign and the great American word "OK" ("okay") are a damned important part of our speech. And if we reject it now, then, going forward, all those past images of simple positivity will become confusing and subject to misinterpretation. And it seems this big, artificial move — changing an important part of our expression — is all about destroying Donald Trump. But nothing destroys Donald Trump! All efforts at destroying him destroy something else! Stop being do damned destructive...
OK?
Posts
288 comments:
1 – 200 of 288 Newer› Newest»The word I wonder about is "deliberately".
A lot of liberal young adults are observing current events and are becoming conservative Republicans.
That's what happened to me when I was about 21 years old.
Damn, Uncle Sam’s legs look sexy as fuck in that picture.
The trouble is official credulity.
"this big, artificial move"
Prog coercion in a nutshell.
Washington Post means white power.
Leftists don’t care if they destroy American tradition, so long as they further the smears and the attempt to “get Trump.”
4Chan truly are the ultimate trolls. I'd really love for the Superintendent to produce a single student, one, who has ever "experience[d] this gesture as a symbol of white supremacy."
This has a funny synchronicity with the milkshake story.
Songs of innocence and experience.
From wikipedia, as good an elevator version as any:
[T]he fallen world and its institutions... sometimes impinges on childhood itself, and ... becomes known through "experience", a state of being marked by the loss of childhood vitality, by fear and inhibition...
This is insane. Why in the world would ally yourself and the school with white supremacists in claiming that hand jesyure as theirs alone. Next on the docket searching old images to find OK gestures that can now be denounces as racist. Gak!
libtards gotta libtard. LOL
Why in the world do Schools align with hate groups like Black Lives Matter and Antifa?
our students of color
From the geriatric possessive to the racist possessive.
Okey, dokey artichokey.
IIRC, back in the 70's the yearbook staff snuck something inappropriate into the yearbook. Staff made them cut the picture out of every single year book.
Cheaper, and made the point in an understandable way.
-XC
I think 4chan's next step will be to find a common progressive symbol or phrase and suggest it is a sign by Russian intelligence for identification.
Maybe they would have preferred this:
A problematic variation of the OK hand sign
If this is somehow a white supremacist symbol now (which it isn't and never was), why the hell do we give up and just let them have it? WTF?
Psst, the simple hand wave, aka "white wipe", is used to symbolically erase minorities from America. It's especially powerful when used against a colored person.
Pass it on.
Superintendent Joylynn] Pruitt-Adams
She black.
Create & manufacture a false meme meant to trick the idiots who hate Trump into thinking Trump is a racist, and this is the kind of money leftwing assholes get to waste.
It is also not OK to write "It's OK to be white." OK?
In the future, all gestures and words will be suspect. When the leftwing machine takes over, we will all be guilty. We will all be at the mercy of the Nazi boot.
...not only our students of color...
It disturbs me how quickly people have succumbed in acquiescing to the grotesquely Orwellian "...of color" phrasing.
People who are supposed to be the adults in the room (yeah, I know, hahaha) engaging in craven scrupulosity over things like "OK" signs, then proceeding immediately to bleating out "people of color", "students of color", without a thought or reflection regarding the ugliness and stupidity inhering in that phrasing.
Such attempts to vilify and control free expression are basically spreading from our universities throughout our society.
In this particular case, high school administrators are trying to control free expression, but they are following the examples that are modeled at the universities.
The universities are the epicenter of this phenomenon because the universities are enrolling too many students who cannot and will not read at a university level. In order to justify the subsequent academic failures, the universities must blame supposed ubiquitous racism (or sexism or whatever) within the universities.
* The academic failures cannot be blamed on the students who were enrolled despite their inability to read at a university level.
* Rather, the academic failures happen because those students are too traumatized by the racism that they see everywhere on campus.
Therefore, the universities change building names, remove statues, forbid costumes at fraternity parties and Halloween parties, and so forth and so on.
High school administrators observe university administrators acting hysterically, and so they do likewise. For example, this particular high school's administrators are acting hysterically about OK gestures in the high-school yearbook.
So much for Old Kinderhook!
The real problem is that the children are White and so may be judged as White Power advocates in the future and lose their jobs . . etc. The only safe solution is no pictures.
OK. So, what's a clinched fist in the air mean or harken to?
Might it be equally said, "potentially subjecting our students to this trauma is simply not acceptable"?
Soon to be offensive gesture for "whateverrrr".
If this doesn't start the revolution against the Maoist indoctrination that our education system has become, will anything? Ever? Do they just win?
The fascist Left wants to fundamentally transform our nation from one in which we practice tolerance to one in which they get to say who and what is no longer tolerable. Trouble is, Americans don’t tolerate being scolded and hectored by PC fascists. It’s one of the main reasons we elected Trump, the anti-PC warrior.
It is also not OK to write "It's OK to be white." OK?
That's because it's not okay to be white. If white people haven't figured that out yet, they haven't been paying attention. "Whiteness" has become synonymous with awfulness. See New York Tiems headlines.
Sounds like Althouse is about to condemn the War on Individualism. I wonder how far up the slippery slope she is willing to trudge?
It disturbs me how quickly people have succumbed in acquiescing to the grotesquely Orwellian "...of color" phrasing.
The phrase "people of color" appears in the 1800's. Grotesque and silly, yes, but it predates Orwell.
Everyone is colored or else you couldn't see them.
Don Van Vliet/1969
It is OK to be a rich WHITE leftwing progressive male. As long as you're a good totalitarian big government fascist. Like Colorado's governor and elite pack of nanny-mommy-fascists who run the state house.
There shouldn't be yearbooks. They'r completely unnecessary in the digital age, and they were never really necessary to begin with.
If I had a student in any school, I would refuse to allow them to use his name, image, writings, artwork, or voice to be displayed, used, broadcast, or otherwise disseminated in any way. There's no telling what the hysterical Left will decide is the mark of the impure.
It's obvious the photographers and the whole yearbook staff are racists! Just burn all the yearbook copies, and never print another. That way there will never be another controversy about it! We all know only troublemakers and subversives want to get on the yearbook staff in any school. Do away with yearbooks!
The universities are the epicenter of this phenomenon because the universities are enrolling too many students who cannot and will not read at a university level.
Yup, you got it. This video of the BLM invasion of the Dartmouth library during finals is key.
Why were the "students of color" not studying ? What were their majors? Why invade the library where real students are studying ?
Can we re-do Northam's yearbook. For the memory hole?
This is totalitarianism, pure and simple. Get used to it, folks, or get prepared for war.
My how things have changed there. My mother graduated from the high school in, I believe, 1941. Back then Oak Park, where she lived, was a nice area, with a number of Frank Loyd Wright houses, including several on her block.
This is an extension of "zero tolerance" policies, wherein "educators" substitute procedures for thinking.
For thinking is hard, and you might get it wrong. Therefore it's safer that all responses should be automatic and based on procedure. Except where procedural solutions do not yet exist, the precautionary principle shall be used: if it is possible that a thing might be harmful or hurtful (no matter how small the probability) then that thing must be excised, or banned.
It all makes sense when one realizes that "educators" are radically risk-averse, and thus will always prefer the safe, easy answer over anything that requires thinking. Thinking is just too dangerous.
Boy these comment threads are dreary many times: I'm white and conservative; woe is me.
"The 'OK' symbol hoax was so widespread in the spring and summer of 2017 that a number of people on the far right began deliberately to use the gesture—typically making the sign while posing for photographs uploaded to social media—in order to continue the trolling and spread it further,”
Wait a minute, are they saying that the "OK" hand sign as some sort of secret white supremacy sign is a hoax? Like, you know, not true?
The administrators of this school, in particular Pruitt-Adams, ought to be terminated for incompetence asap.
P.S. What does "distructive" mean? Dictionary.com suggests it is a misspelling (as does the red squiggly line under it when I type it here).
I'm sick of this horse crap. I wonder if that makes me a racist. But then again I'm a white male Christian Republican. So I guess by definition I am.
I wonder if I care.
I wonder how many other people care.
In high school (1971) some of my friends on the yearbook staff tried to sneak some bird-flipping gestures into the photos, but I don't think it worked. They were able to reference the Apteryx, a wingless bird with hairy feathers, somewhere.
My son's high school yearbook (2004) had some controversy attached--gang signs! OOHH!
Narr
I rarely actually follow the links, is that wrong?
It looks like the schools are preparing us for The Great Leap Forward
Stop with the OK sign, just use the middle finger.
The only damage done here was accusing the students of racism based on nothing. That is far more damaging and hurtful than anything the OK sign could manage. This is a racist decision aimed only at kids with one skin color. Stop being racist.
What bothers me is that the kids weren't even doing the OK hand signal from the hoax (the normal OK with the O being the thumb and index finger and the other three fingers splayed out and pointing up). The hoax said the upraised fingers were the W and the O with the wrist and forearm made a P for WP or White Power.
The yearbook page was about the Circle Game. So not even the traditional OK symbol that was utilized in the hoax. If they were to take the finger placement to denote letters as does the hoax, then the kids are flashing Mb or dM and not WP. It is all so silly.
@Readering:
Boy these comment threads are dreary many times: I'm white and conservative; woe is me.
Right. How dare people be dismayed at seeing their civilization systemically dismantled before their eyes. Much better to put our energy into more pressing matters, like Ok symbols and how many blacks got admitted to Bed-Stuy.
Trolls said, Hey, let's take a hand gesture that lots and lots of people use, and convince gullible paranoid people that it's secretly a white supremacist symbol.
White supremacists said, Hey, this is great. They're terrified of us!
Then normal people had a choice:
1) Say, This is fucking ridiculous. I've been making that gesture all my life and meaning, OK! and you are not taking it away from me. Don't give them that power over you.
2) Say, We must immediately stop making that gesture because it pleases them. Anyone still making that gesture is suspect. We'll have to make rules and police them, of course.
Guess which response appeals to those whose default response to any crisis is, "I'm going to need more power and control over others"?
Blogger readering said...
Boy these comment threads are dreary many times: I'm white and conservative; woe is me.
I understand Talking Points Memo has more exciting threads. No conservatives because we were all banned long ago.
Lots of "Orange Man Bad" comments, which is your favorite.
There's no telling what the hysterical Left will decide is the mark of the impure.
I'm planning a mob to throw chocolate milkshakes at white people who ostentatiously display their whiteness, as well as their failure to show unity with our students of students of color, by not wearing black makeup.
Because potentially subjecting our students of color to the trauma of unexpressed unity is Simply. Not. Acceptable.
We need to start a hoax where smiling is a racist gesture. It's showing off the whitest of your whiteness.
If we could just figure out how to make lying a racist act. Then some actual good could come from this bulshit.
"We aren't offended by the OK sign, but other people might be"
"We don't particularly want to vote for Joe Biden, but other people might."
That hand signal is regularly used by scuba divers. I am sure there will be changes coming to that activity as well.
readering: Boy these comment threads are dreary many times: I'm white and conservative; woe is me.
We're doing it to cheer you up, readering. Something comfortable and familiar to sniff about to take your mind off the present deep frustrations and disappointments that are causing so much mental and emotional distress for you and so many other righteous progs.
Glad to help out.
Let's Review The Facts;
A) were White Students There?.... Answer: YES!
B) were these White Students Guilty?.... BY DEFINITION: YES!
C) IF these White students did not Want to be guilty; WHY WERE THEY BORN WHITE?
D) Until we Remove ALL WHITE STUDENTS, they will continue to be there.
So for complete consistency with the previous story, will they retake or remove any photos that contain a milkshake?
Next time go with a middle finger- isn’t really open to interpretation.
OK signs in a yearbook are unacceptable because they will derail a student's career sometime in the future. It's for their own good. We can see the wisdom of this decision in how appearing in blackface in a yearbook derailed a governor's career. No wait, what?
WP or White Power.
The "WP" motorcycle suspension (and etc?) company used to be called "White Power".
It's time to segregate our schools, neighborhoods, and society in general.
Kay observes: Damn, Uncle Sam’s legs look sexy as fuck in that picture.
And his ass isn't bad, either, for an old man.
One of my high school yearbooks has a picture of lab partners from my Physics class. One is flashing the OK sign. The other partner, of the Afro-American persuasion, had no objection whatsoever to the OK sign.
JPS, Well put.
This has got to be 4chan’s high water mark. A whole country dancing to their tune. Pepe you magnificent bastard.
@AllenS:
It's time to segregate our schools, neighborhoods, and society in general.
People to this day underestimate the shock to the system integration was. It not only gave us busing and the destruction of schools but pretty much created the suburbs.
Mr. Spock's famous hand symbol really meant "live long and bite me". It said so on 4chan.
It's not the same, but nonetheless I'm reminded of how quickly "gay" transformed from an innocuous descriptor into a homosexual identifier.
But it's OK when Eddie Murphy does it, right?
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PovUdFeGsbA/Vh6yLN99-vI/AAAAAAAAPm0/yAPN6WiyeU0/s1600/eddie-murphy-oh-tay-buckwheat.png
Back when SNL was funny Eddie Murphy used to do Buckwheat and his tag was the OK gesture shown at the link.
Sheesh. People have gone completely nuts. $54m because someone make the OK sign?
John Henry
This moral panic about "white supremacists" is funny, because actual white supremacists are damn near impossible to find. Your average KKK cell probably has more undercover FBI agents than actual white racists. But the Democrat political coalition requires the existence of a robust white supremacist movement to keep all the parts of the coalition (blacks, gays, Muslims, Hispanics, etc) from devouring each other. So we have the media hyping up the white supremacist menace and priming gullible rubes like Principal Pruitt-Adams to see white supremacist witches under every bed.
Alexandria Ocasio-Kortez
She's A-OK!
@Automatic_Wing:
Exactly correct. It's what Steve Sailer refers to as the KKKrazy Glue holding it all together. We actually had a Klan movie in 2018. And even it had to embellish a totally fake crime plot because the original story went nowhere.
Could we get a list of appropriate and inappropriate hand gestures/signals, with artwork, showing us what hand gestures/signals can and cannot be used? That would be helpful.
The middle finger could be the gold standard since we all know and accept what it means. I'm a bit foggy on the rest.
Don't wanna break any rules.
It's time to segregate our schools, neighborhoods, and society in general.
"While traveling on the Navajo Nation, remember that you are on a sovereign, self-governing nation, and just as you would abroad, please obey all tribal laws and regulations. We as Navajo people view our land as a spiritual entity & as such PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE CREMATED REMAINS IN CANYONS, MOUNTAINS, WATER, OR ON ANY PARTS OF NAVAJOLAND."
Secondly: Do not write on the canyon walls, as takes a lot of work...to erase writing off of walls.
Blogger Angle-Dyne, Samurai Buzzard said...
It disturbs me how quickly people have succumbed in acquiescing to the grotesquely Orwellian "...of color" phrasing.
I find this incredibly confusing myself. I am a Puerto Rican. By 4-5 of the dozen or so definitions, I am also an Hispanic. I doubt that I have ever met anyone that is Hispanic under all the different definitions.
Can I get a ruling on whether I am a "person of color"?
If you need a picture of me https://www.smedworks.com/john-henry
As a person of color, I have a lot of problems with some of you people. I am offended.
Not by anything in particular, I am just offended. Y'all better straighten up.
John Henry
Blogger glenn said...
This has got to be 4chan’s high water mark. A whole country dancing to their tune. Pepe you magnificent bastard.
Yea, that worked out well.
People are being labeled, ostracized, even fired for a common cultural gesture.
Yep, they sure taught the left a lesson. So funny.
"my meme is in you"
-- 4chan
“Pruitt-Adams sounds completely lucid. The effect on the observer matters...”. Um no .. and no.
I used to get upset at this stuff (like Jersey Fled it really chapped my hide). Now I don’t. Wanna know why?
Because the ridiculousness is needed for it to stop. It got adopted here and there and people kind of ignored it, grumbled “whatever” and moved on. Then it got really prevalent and made normal people mad. Now we’re in the ridiculous phase where it’s used in official ways by official people and its having the reverse effect (finally) on the masses.
Examples:
Boys (claiming to be girls) running in girls track. Now girls are getting pissed and speaking out. Pretty soon there’ll be nothing left of Title IX. What will RBG do?
Bathroom Bills and now the so-called “Equality Act” being pushed by Pelosi that allows “gender identity” protection as a civil right. If that ever passed the senate and got signed into law it wouldn’t be long before guys were watching girls in the showers, everyone was referred to by the pronoun “it” and Orwell rolled over in his grave.
Green New Deal. Reparations. And on and on.
The end is in sight, finally. Maybe in my lifetime we’ll be back to normalcy and the crazy lefty lib experiment will fall away. But we need more and more of these people taking advantage of the ridiculousness (like boys running girls track) before the silent masses speak up and make the correction.
This is my "OK" gesture. If you don't like it, I have others.
(With apologies to Groucho Marx.)
> People are being labeled, ostracized, even fired for a common cultural gesture.
And then what?
Voting for Democrats is also a secret racist code. Better not do that either.
Keep your hands in your pockets. It’s the only way to be sure.
I'm a Cubs' fan and I read the Chicago sports pages daily. The OK controversy took off in Chicago because Cub's beat reporters wrote article upon article about the great OK sign debacle at Wrigley Field.
Subtext of this madness... Several members of the Ricketts' family, owners of the Cubs, are ardent Trump supporters. A couple have contributed to or worked in Trump's campaign. PC obsessed Tribune and Sun-Times reporters in the depths of Trump Derangement Syndrome search constantly for PC infractions committed by any member of the Ricketts' family.
The result has been that Cubs' management has become hysterical about proving its PC bona fides. They rush to punish the tiniest offenses the sportswriters can muster.
The Ricketts are also in constant war with the Democratic Party alderman who controls any development or building in the plazas exterior to Wrigley. The sportswriters have, predictably, signed on with the Democratic Party machine.
"but pretty much created the suburbs."
Oh bullshit Farmer. It had zero to do with busing a integration. Suburbia started at the end of WWII....millions returned home, got married, and had kids. With little housing or land available in cities available, and with help from the GI Bill that guaranteed veteran mortgages, growth in open land with inexpensive track housing occurred.
glenn said...
Keep your hands in your pockets. It’s the only way to be sure.
No, you'd be accused of playing with yourself.
Postmodern thinking has created people who are retarded not so much in the perjoritive but in the literal sense. Heaven help us if we have a real crisis we need to deal with.
Farmer
You aren’t consistent. This was “a brilliant bit of marketing “ by 4chan trolls wasn’t it?
If leftwing totalitarians, driven mad by Trump hate, if they want to find a crime, they will.
An OK sign will do.
I heard the "peace sign" means you are a KKK member.
Mike (MJB Wolf): "Leftists don’t care if they destroy American tradition, so long as they further the smears and the attempt to “get Trump.”'
Leftists AND LLR's. Most proudly admit as much.
Mike (MJB Wolf): "The fascist Left wants to fundamentally transform our nation from one in which we practice tolerance to one in which they get to say who and what is no longer tolerable."
The fascist Left AND LLR's.
Like Fen says - sometimes the only way to respond to leftwing totalitarian speech crime progressive fascist Nazism is to tell them to FUCK THE FUCK OFF.
White supremacist joke:
A Mexican, a black and an white are walking down the beach, find bottle.
Genie grants each a wish.
Mexican wishes all Mexicans in America be back in Mexico and happy. poof
Black wishes all blacks in America be back in Africa and happy. poof
White says, so all Mexicans are out of America and all Blacks are out of America?
Yes, says genie.
I'll just have a coke, then.
-The Boondock Saints (1999), watched it last night
Actually that wouldn't be white supremacist but just a guy who doesn't like being with blacks and Mexicans. A white racial disliker joke.
Have to remember Derbyshire's catalog of wildly different things called white supremacy
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2016-12-02.html#05
essay question: who is mocked in the joke.
My parents left the city for a new house in the suburbs because the old house basement would flood after it rained. The other places in the city were not very nice either.
It's probably safer to burn all books...you never know when some offensive words or phrases might slip through the editor. Burn 'em all I say
"A lot of liberal young adults are observing current events and are becoming conservative Republicans.
"That's what happened to me when I was about 21 years old."
Hmmm...I was in my early 20s, when, as a registered Republican, I started observing current events and began questioning the verities I had been raised with in a Republican family.
My questioning led me away from the Republican party.
Automatic_Wing: This moral panic about "white supremacists" is funny, because actual white supremacists are damn near impossible to find. Your average KKK cell probably has more undercover FBI agents than actual white racists. But the Democrat political coalition requires the existence of a robust white supremacist movement to keep all the parts of the coalition (blacks, gays, Muslims, Hispanics, etc) from devouring each other. So we have the media hyping up the white supremacist menace and priming gullible rubes like Principal Pruitt-Adams to see white supremacist witches under every bed.
It's all fun and games until the more malicious instigators and their dumb, brainwashed followers hit an opportunity to go all Red Guard.
Nobody never learns nothin', do they? The same people running around screaming that innocuous or entirely imaginary things *must be banned* because whatever-it-is will lead to violence because *that's exactly how Nazi Germany started*...
...are now obsessively engaged in demonizing a racial group, kicking it up a notch on a regular basis.
For those wishing to display their white pride but afraid of the OK signal, try this:
5 fingers of the right hand splayed open plus 3 fingers of the left hand. The 8 stands for the 8th president Martin Van Buren known as Old Kinderhook which is where the OK sign comes from.
Don't let the Van Buren boys, see you though.
John Henry
M. Sylvester is right, this state of mind comes from the universities, but its origins are not so bureaucratic-contingent as that. Its not some absurd bureaucratic response to unexpected consequences of other policies. This all comes from the philosophical center, the heart and soul, such as it is, and it is deliberate.
readering is right, but "woe is me" is the only response, from anyone without children to protect. This is a disaster in the making and there is no way out of it. If you have kids, take them out of this culture, flee.
There is no White Supremacy movement or ideology. The left is simply lying. The existence of a handful of websites is not proof of the existence of a political movement.
Chicago does have a gang problem. That would be black gangs. The problem is greatly exacerbated by the grim reality that the Democratic Party is allied with the black gangs and actually funnels money and "social programs" thru them.
The black gangs are terrorizing the South Side, murdering and intimidating witnesses to gang violence. The new mayor promises to pretty much cease policing the neighborhoods controlled by black gangs.
This is the real issue in Chicago. Not roving, murderous hordes of the unwashed white rednecks from downstate.
The entire lefty story of Chicago is a lie intended to cement black gang control of the streets in black communities.
Ken B:
Farmer
You aren’t consistent. This was “a brilliant bit of marketing “ by 4chan trolls wasn’t it?
Perhaps you can point out the inconsistency. And considering my first comment was "4Chan truly are the ultimate trolls," I do think it was pretty brilliant on their part. They have forced the left into ever more ridiculous positions in the name of anti-racism, which is really just anti-white.
I noticed that the African American woman anchor on the CBS morning show used the OK hand gesture yesterday in their TV promo advertisement. Did they miss the memo or is three a new 2019 definition for this symbol.
Boy these comment threads are dreary many times: I'm white and conservative; woe is me.
Just wait until we start demanding reparations.
Mike Sylwester: "A lot of liberal young adults are observing current events and are becoming conservative Republicans.
Then they get a little older and realize that the "conservative Republicans" are full of shit, too.
Back when the Interwebs were new, there was a site (maybe SPLC?) that helpfully contained known hate-symbols, inlcuding the hippy-dippy peace sign. I allowed as to how that seemed a little . . . arbitrary . . . and someone connected to the place that frequented the same newsgroup got it removed.
If you're tempted to prove to me that the hippy-dippy peace sign is actually a hate symbol, spare yourself the effort.
Narr
The name-brand cult I was raised in has as its current trademark a flaming cross, and we all know what that means
Farmer writes: People to this day underestimate the shock to the system integration was. It not only gave us busing and the destruction of schools but pretty much created the suburbs.
Many people fail to understand that not all of the US was segregated. I went to school with black students and so did my mother. She said the most popular girl and valedictorian at her high school was black. And I saw proof of that in her yearbook. Many of us in the western US missed the whole ghetto thing. Not saying there wasn't prejudice but there seemed to be more interaction between ethnic groups than in the Midwest and South.
"4Chan truly are the ultimate trolls. I'd really love for the Superintendent to produce a single student, one, who has ever 'experience[d] this gesture as a symbol of white supremacy.'"
A good question, but, are there really many young people today who actually use the "ok" symbol to signify they're ok? I have barely ever done so in my life, (to the point that I'm not sure if I ever have). It seems anachronistic, like saying "swell!" or "keen!"
Leftwing fascist progressives in the media get a ton of mileage out of their lies.
See: The Charlottesville lie.
Curious George: Oh bullshit Farmer. It had zero to do with busing a integration. Suburbia started at the end of WWII....millions returned home, got married, and had kids.
It started out that way, but busing, etc., accelerated the process. Unless you're arguing that "white flight" is as much a figment of the prog imagination as "white supremacy", in which case I'd be interested in hearing your argument.
"Y'all better straighten up."
Careful of cultural appropriation John Henry. As a Puerto Rican, you may not be authorized to use "Y'all."
“We are concerned that the gesture will become more closely associated with White supremacy in the future.
And is this outcome more or less likely based on the actions of Oak Park and River Forest High School system?
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
We really need National Racist Day to restore normalcy. On this day, white people would provide a demonstration of what REAL racism would be like for Person of Color. Then the rest of the year wouldn’t look so bad.
The end is not in sight, it cant be without the destruction of your universities and the spiritual conversion of your leadership caste. There isnt even a glimmer of movement in those areas.
All that is going on now is a separation of cultures and castes. That wont end well, as you are seeing what is in effect two nations forming, both finding ever more substantial reasons to hate the other. That has to be, because both sides are defined by the other.
Your worst enemies now aren't any foreign rivals, though you have foreign rivals, but each others factions.
Some of the epiphenomena seem silly, like this one, but that is just because they make no sense in the remembered natural order of things. But that natural order in our memories is obsolete, things have changed. People have trouble keeping up and are easily misled by their memories.
A good question, but, are there really many young people today who actually use the "ok" symbol to signify they're ok?
Better expel them all. Can't be too careful.
Trump ruins everything, especially his enemies.
My younger daughter/conspiracy theorist insisted that the OK sign was actually a product of the Illuminati. She is, however, a BIG Trump supporter.
@Curious George:
Oh bullshit Farmer. It had zero to do with busing a integration.
See "white flight."
p.s. Oops, just saw that Angle-Dyne, Samurai Buzzard got there before me. Thanks for the assist.
@mockturtle:
Many of us in the western US missed the whole ghetto thing
Lucky you
Until fairly recently, strict rules were applied to what clothes different social groups could wear, how they could speak, and what jobs they were allowed to do. Not so much in America, ever, but certainly in England. Our woke progressives are turning the US into a socially stratified British public school, circa 1910.
So that was the White Supremacist Corral where they fought the Clantons...er...Klantons.
White flight is indistinguishable from ethnic cleansing. The only difference is who gets blamed.
The kids can just say that they were doing it ironically! As in "Yeah, I wore black face to the prom, but I was doing it ironically."
Old Kinderhook which is where the OK sign comes from.
I had read a different version of the origin. After Jackson was elected, there were lots of new hangers on. To distinguish his original supporters from the new office seekers, the originals were called "Old Kentucky" and this was abbreviated to "OK."
Van Buren was Jackson's chosen successor.
First they ruined the swastika, and now the OK symbol? These fascists must be stopped!
Blogger Robert Cook said...
"A lot of liberal young adults are observing current events and are becoming conservative Republicans.
"That's what happened to me when I was about 21 years old."
Hmmm...I was in my early 20s, when, as a registered Republican . . .
When you were a registered Republican, id you know a guy named "Chuck"? With a capital "C"?
Huh. Dog-whistle to catch dog-whistle catchers.
It is depressing how much of the evidence for racism in our country does not actually require any evidence at all.
Curious George notes: ...Suburbia started at the end of WWII....millions returned home, got married, and had kids...
They realized that cities were no healthy place for children to live and many WWII couples dreamt of a 'cottage in the country' to settle and raise their families. My parents were among them and I grew up in the suburbs like so many my age.
Will they soon discover the "thumbs up" is a sexist symbol with thumb representing a phallus?
Or is the "thumbs up" racist because real bros do a fist bump?
It appears we do need a better quality and quantity of racists in America.
Since Liberals/Democrats and the Lame Stream Media© (but I repeat myself) have had to resort to manufacturing them.... ;)
https://www.worldtribune.com/survey-racial-prejudice-has-significantly-declined-in-trump-era/
Buwaya's eloquence again warning of doom. It's over. We lost. Americans no longer have a fighting spirit. But I'm praying we prove you wrong! :-)
"...not only our students of color..."
Well, we've come full circle in about 60 years:
"Colored people" ==> "Negroes" ==> "blacks" ==> "Afro-Americans" ==> "African Americans" ==> "people of color"
I don't care.
Whatever people wish to be called, that's what I'll call them.
The vast majority of people I've met prefer to live among their own kind.
This is not some sort of evil thing. It's actually their constitutional right.
City housing was beat to crap after WW2, old and poorly maintained after the Depression and war time shortages. Many of the city homes and apartment blocks were ancient & falling apart, lots were small, many did not have driveways. The privately owned automobile built the suburbs, not integration.
A variant of the OK sign is used by both referees and players to signify a made three point shot. We all know how racist basketball is.
Pruitt-Adams sounds completely lucid. The effect on the observer matters
No, it doesn't.
Reality matters. Your feelings do not matter. "I feel threatened by this"? "Tough. Shut up, and grow up."
Either that, Or the lunatic obsessions about the Bilderburgers, the Trilateral Commission, Black Helicopters, etc, should all be treated equally seriously.
It is time to stop letting the lunatics run the asylum. Superintendent Joylynn Pruitt-Adams is, and sounds like, a nut, and should be fired. So should every other school administrator who pushed this decision.
"See "white flight."
While white flight increased suburban populations, it did not create them. White flight occurred in the 50's and 60's....the creation of suburbia happened in the late 40's and 50's. And it had everything to do with a huge population growth (ever hear of the "Baby Boom") and the income increases and mortgage availability due to the GI Bill.
"Van Buren was Jackson's chosen successor."
Well, The Van Buren Boys have their own hand sign as well.
Fucking retards. So many institutions and and people in authority have been exposesd as fucking retards. Trump is going to win again because of shit like this.
The left may not see it, but this is giving trolls an enormous amount of power. What if 4Chan decided to make drinking Coke in public a symbol of white supremacy, and those types of guys started being photographed with it? To the extent the okay sign has actually been co-opted as a white supremacist symbol, the correct response is for everyone to do it and thus rob it of any other meaning. If everyone is doing your secret handshake, it's worthless as a secret handshake.
"Mr. Spock's famous hand symbol really meant..."
As Leonard Nimoy himself later admitted, he copied the hand symbol from a gesture he saw his Jewish rabbi use while praying during Yom Kippur. You're not supposed to peek, but as a child, Nimoy peeked anyway and saw the gesture.
Reminds me of the time the kids at the local high school trolled the new principal, telling her that shoes with thre stripes on them were a sign of gang membership. Except soccer was popular in the community, and most kids had Adidas shoes, often they were they only gym shoes the kids owned. The push-back from poorer families that had trouble affording another pair of gym shoes was immediate.
@Curious George:
While white flight increased suburban populations, it did not create them.
See my qualifier "pretty much." But to avoid a back and forth on this niggle, I will happily concede and withdraw the word "created."
I'll try again. See my posts above.
It's fascinating how the left has morphed the gang problem in Chicago into a one of non-existent white gangs, instead of the real problem of murderous black gangs controlling the South Side.
4Chan's next trick is to make the gay rainbow flag a symbol of racism and hate.
I hope they are successful cuz that will be funny as hell.
https://youtu.be/x3SxEOvAOEg
"mockturtle said...
Curious George notes: ...Suburbia started at the end of WWII....millions returned home, got married, and had kids...
They realized that cities were no healthy place for children to live and many WWII couples dreamt of a 'cottage in the country' to settle and raise their families. My parents were among them and I grew up in the suburbs like so many my age."
That may be true of your parents, but the real reason was the simple fact that there simply was not sufficient house or space to build new housing, and they had to live somewhere. And early suburban growth was hardly "cottage in the country"....you look at those suburbs closest to urban areas and they are small homes, on small lots, all looking the same. Like this:
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/ushistory2ay/chapter/the-rise-of-suburbs-2/
It’s a good thing they don’t dive.
Greg P for the thread win.
I don't know about you, but the "OK" sign gets a thumbs up from me. I won't let these pissants dictate my behavior. It is going in all my future photos.
Of course, I am retired. I wouldn't do this five years ago when I was still working.
OPRF has $54k to waste?
These educators don't even know they look like idiots. Much more of this stuff will convince the public that our schools are administered and taught by morons.
Shouting Thomas said...
The vast majority of people I've met prefer to live among their own kind.
This is not some sort of evil thing. It's actually their constitutional right.
Malcolm X talks a little about that in his autobiography. In a multiracial society embracing freedom and equality, people will naturally segregate along racial lines and there's nothing wrong with that.
newest troll:
Rainbow Flag =>> keep the colors separate!
honk honk!
Troll level "grand master"
ok!
👌 👌 👌 👌 👌
Wasting money is what government entities, including public schools, do in Illinois. If people will lend us the money, we'll spend it on something stupid. That's what we call good government here.
Millions for Riverwalk! Bike lanes for the people! Hire more government administrators! Let's borrow to fund pensions--and we'll sell the bonds to the Illinois pension funds!
This "White supremacy" trope is, literally, one of the stupidest things I've ever seen.
Think about it.
The folks who founded the country we call, "China" tend to have a few things in common. Similar hair color, similar skin color, similar language (albeit several sub-dialects).
The point is, most sane people expect to find many CHINESE people in China. Duh!
Well, the good 'ole USA was founded by British subjects. Their skin color was largely white. They spoke English. They were largely Christian (yes, some were Deists, so what?)
So, is it any surprise to discover that a country founded by white, English-speaking, Christians has a f&cking lotta white English-speaking Christians?
This can't be hard.
I am sick and tired of the high five. I think we should start promoting it as the Nazi salute so that we can be rid of this hand gesture once and for all.
Curious George said...early suburban growth was hardly "cottage in the country"....you look at those suburbs closest to urban areas and they are small homes, on small lots, all looking the same.
https://youtu.be/2_2lGkEU4Xs
The "thumbs-up" is bad too. Could mean that you intend to shove it up somebody's ass.
@Metalman:
Rainbow Flag =>> keep the colors separate!
honk honk!
Troll level "grand master"
Ha. Gays are a protected class, so it'll never get off the ground. They're even more protected than blacks. Ask Kevin Hart.
We are losing our fucking minds. A school district spending $55K just to eliminate a hand gesture from photos.
I encourage every single fucking high school student to use this gesture relentlessly from this point forward. It is the only way to combat this sort of nonsense on the part of the politicians and school officials.
Cook: "My questioning led me away from the Republican party."
Sure thing Jan.
Because kids brought up Republican "evolve" into calling the troops "parasites" for serving in "peacetime".
And why are we allowing people to wear black boots, still? Or wear cotton clothing? Or eat bananas?
@tim in maguire:
Malcolm X talks a little about that in his autobiography. In a multiracial society embracing freedom and equality, people will naturally segregate along racial lines and there's nothing wrong with that.
Absolutely. There is only one minor problem. Our egalitarian culture has no way of processing and making sense of black underperformance. Everywhere that blacks predominate, whether Detroit, Port-au-Prince, or Lagos, civilizational achievements lag or recede.
Our egalitarian culture has no way of processing and making sense of black underperformance. Everywhere that blacks predominate, whether Detroit, Port-au-Prince, or Lagos, civilizational achievements lag or recede.
Chicago used to work but no longer does. As you can see from the hysteria about "OK" that is no longer allowed.
Of course, it happens but it must not be mentioned.
'The "thumbs-up" is bad too. Could mean that you intend to shove it up somebody's ass.'
You are a mind reader.
President-Mom-Jeans said...
Fucking retards. So many institutions and and people in authority have been exposesd as fucking retards.
I hardly ever read a PMJ post, but I caught this one in passing. I don't know how it could be improved upon as the definitive expression of the fundamental problem.
A good question, but, are there really many young people today who actually use the "ok" symbol to signify they're ok? I have barely ever done so in my life, (to the point that I'm not sure if I ever have). It seems anachronistic, like saying "swell!" or "keen!"
Give the kids some credit.
As school authorities become increasingly more authoritarian, the smart kids figure out how to tweak them.
We did that back in the 60's.
We keep insisting on letting morons do important things.
@Michael K:
Chicago used to work but no longer does. As you can see from the hysteria about "OK" that is no longer allowed.
Of course, it happens but it must not be mentioned.
Well now that they have that black lesbian mayor, things will be turning around real fast.
"I don't know about you, but the "OK" sign gets a thumbs up from me."
I've replaced the thumbs up emoji in my text messages with the ok emoji. So far no one has been "injured" nor has anyone complained.
J. Farmer said...Our egalitarian culture has no way of processing and making sense of black underperformance. Everywhere that blacks predominate, whether Detroit, Port-au-Prince, or Lagos, civilizational achievements lag or recede.
In the U.S., I see it as an unintended consequence of ending housing discrimination. Once upon a time, even the poorest inner-city black neighborhoods had lawyers, teachers, doctors--positive role models of every stripe--because they couldn't move to the middle class neighborhoods their white colleagues were living in.
Then the civil rights movement gave those lawyers, teachers, and doctors the freedom to live where they wanted and they sure didn't want to live in poor inner-city neighborhoods. In a fairly short period of time, the closest thing to success that young poor black kids got to see were the drug dealers. School didn't make sense anymore. Jobs were for suckers. A criminal record didn't matter. And that's how we got Detroit and Chicago and Newark and LA and the pre-Giuliani Bronx.
trauma.
Darkisland: For those wishing to display their white pride but afraid of the OK signal, try this:
5 fingers of the right hand splayed open plus 3 fingers of the left hand. The 8 stands for the 8th president Martin Van Buren known as Old Kinderhook which is where the OK sign comes from.
OK actually comes from "oll korrect", an intentional misspelling of "all correct", but Van Buren's use of it in his campaign undoubtedly helped popularize it.
Got nothing to do with the hand signal, though.
Cwj,
I could have said Ustedes but many wouldn't have known what it meant.
"y'all" is the English translation.
Besides, being down here on the 18th parallel, I think we qualify as being in the southern us.
John Henry
The NBA is full of racists!
That may be true of your parents, but the real reason was the simple fact that there simply was not sufficient house or space to build new housing, and they had to live somewhere. And early suburban growth was hardly "cottage in the country"....you look at those suburbs closest to urban areas and they are small homes, on small lots, all looking the same. Like this:
Maybe where you lived. In the greater Seattle area they look quite different.
"WK said...
That hand signal is regularly used by scuba divers. I am sure there will be changes coming to that activity as well.
5/22/19, 9:31 AM"
You know, I have never seen a black scuba diver. Has anyone here ever seen one?
In a fairly short period of time, the closest thing to success that young poor black kids got to see were the drug dealers. School didn't make sense anymore. Jobs were for suckers. A criminal record didn't matter. And that's how we got Detroit and Chicago and Newark and LA and the pre-Giuliani Bronx.
Good point. Also there is a good argument for black colleges where faculty are black and competition with whites does not exist.
Rural southern blacks, rather like poor rural southern whites, moved to industrial cities in the north for jobs. It was a bad move for both.
The Left wants to stretch, distort and remake our country into two polar incompatible opposites: San Francisco and Detroit. Both are Democrat hellholes.
In San Francisco, there is a wealthy, white, liberal class who live in Pacific Heights. They have nice views of the Bay and Alcatraz Island and the Golden Gate Bridge. They run the show, politically. They fund the candidates.
How did they become so rich? Some by inherited wealth (the houses are worth $4-5 Million. Some were political/celebrities (Dianne Feinstein/Pelosi/Boxer). Some owned restaurants or other commercial property.
Very few young people are moving into Pacific Heights, let alone buying houses there.
In Detroit, a series of radical black mayors and rioters and union thugs have basically looted the city. In 1950, Detroit had 1.8 Million people. . Today, only 700,000. Most sane middle class people have voted with their feet. Nuff said.
"Could we get a list of appropriate and inappropriate hand gestures/signals, with artwork, showing us what hand gestures/signals can and cannot be used? That would be helpful."
Well, the thumbs up hand gesture is sexist. The thumb represents an erection and the rest of the hand represents really big balls.
Suburbia, as we know it today, goes back to te early 1900s
Burning Daylight, (1910l my favorite Jack London book, has the development of massive suburbs outside of Oakland along with trolleys and ferries to service them.
The title character is based on Borax Smith. Remember "Death Valley Days"?
John Henry
You nailed it! The Left has gone around the bend and off the cliff.
I guess the students will just have.to go back to flipping the bird.
Blogger readering said...
“Boy these comment threads are dreary many times: I'm white and conservative; woe is me.”
Give readering some credit here. It takes some huevos to inject a read herring into a discussion here about progressive lunacy supported by overwhelming evidence.
Or perhaps it is simply progressive incuriousness and elitism that causes him to see “woe is you, readering” as “woe is me.”
Scuba diver, no, but "Men Of Honor" had Cuba Gooding, Jr., portray a famous Navy diver.
And in the story told, the black Navy man had to fight to be allowed to dive.
It could be worse for us- we could be readering.
On consideration, the administrator made the right call.
Not simply because it made bureaucratic sense but because it was a kindly act for the kids involved.
I think people commenting here simply don’t understand the degree of poison in this culture.
Something like this will be used against these teenagers, it can ruin their lives.
You have to see this in order to believe it, maybe, to be in touch with affairs.
I did’t understand just how bad it was until the Brendan Eich episode, and even worse that of Linus Torvalds.
To imagine a parallel, consider America shutting down Thomas Edison’s research operation because he had political opinions incongruent with the powers that be. That the modern American institutions and commercial enterprises are willing to cut off their own arms and legs, to lobotomize themselves, to comply with a political power - that should tell you all you need to know.
Sinclair Lewis' 1915 novel "Free Air" is mostly about a trip by car from Minneapolis to Seattle.
One of the plot points involves one of the cars having a "swastika" tire tread.
Firt time it was mentioned it gave me a jolt.
Probably my favorite Sinclair Lewis novel. It even has a bit part in Boardwalk empire which pleasently surprised me.
John Henry
This is stupid pandering to awful people.
You do not get to decide symbols' meanings for other people.
(The principal is not doing that directly, but he's pandering to people who think they can, and have had great success convincing other people that is workable.
This is even stupider than "MAGA hat = klan hood", which is also untenable.
These people are doing a better job than I would have thought possible of making me sympathetic to their opponents with this overreach and untenable semiotic corruption.
I look forward to 4chan trolls using the "peace symbol" the same way and to watch mass media and activism stridently ignore it because That's Different And We Own That One.
They're making me bitter, too, I guess.)
Seanf
I know there are various plausible theories about the OK.
I'm trying to start a meme here and it only works with the Van Buren theory.
So just zip it, please. You and the other explainers who just want to harsh my mellow cuz I'm a person of color. (maybe)
John Henry
Skippy Tisdale said...
"WK said...
That hand signal is regularly used by scuba divers. I am sure there will be changes coming to that activity as well.
5/22/19, 9:31 AM"
You know, I have never seen a black scuba diver. Has anyone here ever seen one?
They exist. https://www.usni.org/press/oral-histories/brashear-carl
Although last year I did see my first ever black lifeguard. She was born and raised on a Caribbean island, just moved to the U.S. a few years ago.
Trying to think back to any time I've ever seen the OK sign used, and it seems to me that all I can recall is times when it's been too noisy to communicate effectively even by yelling and something just happened that could have damaged people- and they (or I) was signaling back- "I'm OK."
Lot's of hand signs used in areas I've been in. Twirling index finger pointed up- "keep going up with crane. Palm of hand going across the throat- "STOP". Although I suppose that one could be taken completely wrong....
The only people who can buck this Red Guard moment are those with nothing to lose.
People misunderstand the circumstances of mockery.
Kids mocked the zeitgeist back in the day (see Mad magazine, etc.), because there was no cost in doing so.
There were no consequences. The butts of the jokes took the jokes.
You could make careers of it, businesses, like Mad magazine.
That’s no longer true. There are lifelong consequences for everything, potentially anything, that turns into a socio-cultural issue.
Imagine being condemned to a second-class existence, ten years later, for a bit of innocent fun at fifteen.
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