Why Is the Ok Sign Funny
A masked man makes a hand signal that signifies "white power" at a White supremacist rally in the US in July this year. (Dave Sanders/The NYT)
It's a common emoji, and in India, a gesture that people frequently make: forefinger bent to touch the tip of the thumb, creating a circle, and the other three fingers outstretched (or perhaps slightly bent). It conveys approval, a "superb" or "fantastic" that one may want to say at the end of a satisfying meal.
It is also a yogic symbol, often made while sitting in padmasana, with eyes shut and palm facing upward. As an emoji, it is translated as "OK" or "all well". In general, the gesture has traditionally been used in contexts that are positive.
But of late, the gesture (and emoji) has sought to be appropriated by those seeking to convey a less benign sentiment.
In the United States, and some parts of Europe, the "OK" sign is now used to suggest "White power". According to Anti-Defamation League, the international nongovernmental organisation that has been fighting anti-semitism and hate in the Western world for nearly a century now, the gesture is now an extremist meme.
Best of Express Premium
It was reported in American media on Sunday that US military officials had opened an investigation to determine whether some young cadets and junior naval officers who were seen making the sign during a football match between the Army and Navy on Saturday were trying to convey a racist message.
The origin of the sign
A connection has long been made between the gesture and "OK", the Americanism for approval, agreement, or assent that went into currency in the 19th century. Some believe it started with a humorous piece that the journalist Charles Gordon Greene wrote in 1839 in The Boston Morning Post, a newspaper that he founded, using "OK" as an abbreviation for "Oll Korrect" ('all correct', misspelled). People started to make the gesture, seen as vaguely resembling an 'O' and 'K'.
Connection to 'White power'
According to a report in The New York Times, it started in early 2017 when some users on the anonymous online message board 4chan began "Operation O-KKK" — to see if they could lead American liberals and the mainstream media to believe that the gesture was actually a secret symbol of White power.
"We must flood Twitter and other social media websites with spam, claiming that the OK hand signal is a symbol of white supremacy," one of the users posted, according to The NYT report. The prankster suggested that everyone should create fake social media accounts with "basic white girl names" to spread the notion wide.
Soon, however, the 4chan hoax ceased to be one: Neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klansmen, and assorted White supremacists began to use the gesture in public to signal their presence and to spot potential sympathisers and recruits. "For them, the letters formed by the hand were not O and K, but W and P, for 'White Power'," The NYT report said.
As the popularity of the gesture grew, it added on more symbols — the Southern Poverty Law Center, an American nonprofit legal advocacy that is focussed on civil rights and public interest litigation especially against White supremacist groups, has identified memes featuring the alt-right mascot Pepe the Frog (in picture left), among others.
Users of the gesture
Other than random White supremacists, American media reports have named several high-profile far right figures as having flashed the sign openly in public. These include Milo Yiannopolous, the British provocateur who was once an editor for Breitbart News, and Richard B Spencer, a promoter of the 2017 White Power rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
In 2018, Roger Stone, a veteran lobbyist and friend of President Donald Trump's, was photographed showing the sign alongwith a gang of White supremacists. The Anti-Defamation League said the gesture had graduated to a "sincere expression of white supremacy" after the Christchurch mosques terrorist Brenton Tarrant was seen showing the sign at a court hearing in March this year.
Don't miss from Explained: Shutting down the Internet — how, when, and where it has been happening in India
schreiberoblem1944.blogspot.com
Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/does-the-ok-now-signify-white-power-6170543/
0 Response to "Why Is the Ok Sign Funny"
Post a Comment