So are people going to finally admit the shit about the ok hand sign is stupid?

tstorm823

Elite Member
Legacy
Aug 4, 2011
6,468
923
118
Country
USA
The post for operation O-KKK talks very openly about how associating the symbol with white power would be good for the cause. What is the cause? Again, I want you to bear in mind that this is /pol/, a board that, by its creators own admission, was specifically intended as a dumping ground and containment for all the racists and Nazis on 4chan.
So, by associating the ok symbol with white supremacy, you believe you are advancing the cause of white supremacy?
 

Schadrach

Elite Member
Legacy
Mar 20, 2010
1,977
348
88
Country
US
I suspect even in a few years, no-one will remember their brief flirtation with the okay sign, the ADL reference will quietly disappear, and it will go back to a totally uncontested symbol of "okay".
You mean like 12, 13, 14, 88, 23/16, 1/11, 13/52, 14/23, 18, 28, 38, 43, 83, 9% and 100% - all of which are numbers or pairs of numbers between 1 and 100 that the ADL identifies as hate symbols? Those are all certainly fresh in the minds of most folks as numbers to avoid if you don't want to signal your support of white supremacy, right?

Or like if a restaurant has three K's somewhere in it's name. Kathy's Kountry Kitchen is definitely all about the neo-Nazis, after all (and just to be clear, I didn't make this one up lil devil once claimed on these forums that a restaurant having three Ks in the name was a low key way of saying they support the KKK).

I would certainly say that it's a pointless thing to do without corresponding changes in attitudes to underlie it; the point being that to replace an old pejorative with a fresh and neutral term when the forces of prejudice have drained away to a low level means it is unlikely to be poisoned by prejudice. The other trick being that people who want to hold onto their prejudices will themselves almost certainly hold onto the old pejorative that expressed their contempt, because the new, fresh one does not do so.
...and that's why it's acceptable to call them "colored people." No? Only in the name of the NAACP? They weren't trying to use a slur in their name, they were using the at the time current euphemism, which it self wasn't the first euphemism on the treadmill.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dwarvenhobble

Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
8,598
5,962
118
You mean like 12...
I don't want to be too mean here, but this is a sort of gratuitous stupidity. The ADL notes that various organisations have their codes, symbols and esoteric signifiers, but this is really not the same thing as those things always representing hate groups. For instance, are you arguing that the ADL should not note that these are codes used by far right groups, that this information should remain censored because progressives will start mass reporting schools for teaching the 12 times table?

One might consider the history of such symbols, like the Christian fish. It is claimed in the early church it was chosen to be innocuous to most people, but believers would pick up the relevance. On the same logic you are employing here, you may as well argue the fish isn't a symbol of Christianity, despite its prevalence in church advertising and those stickers on the boots of Christians' cars, because the symbol of a fish doesn't always represent Christianity. How good an argument do you think that is?

The reality is that the vast majority of people are capable of discerning what symbols might mean when placed in context. Even an early Christian that saw a fish on a sign above a shop would almost certainly think "fishmonger". And sure, some people are sometimes unsure, and some are wrong. So the usual ever-so-tedious trick at this juncture is introduce the reductio ad absurdam of "this anecdote illustrates someone overreacting or making a mistake". We live in a world where flat earthers, Scientologists and denying the moon landing are a thing: that's the level of at least some of humanity. Thus the fundamental problem with this fallacy is that it makes a completely unreasonable demand for there to be perfection, that's why it's a reductio ad absurdam. Obviously there is not perfection, but just because there isn't doesn't mean ideological adherents never use the symbols ascribed to them and that we can't point that out that they do.

Or like if a restaurant has three K's somewhere in it's name. Kathy's Kountry Kitchen is definitely all about the neo-Nazis, after all (and just to be clear, I didn't make this one up lil devil once claimed on these forums that a restaurant having three Ks in the name was a low key way of saying they support the KKK).
Reductio ad absudam anecdotes like that.

...and that's why it's acceptable to call them "colored people." No? Only in the name of the NAACP? They weren't trying to use a slur in their name, they were using the at the time current euphemism, which it self wasn't the first euphemism on the treadmill.
This sounds like trying to reboot the argument that white people should be allowed to call black people n*****s because they occasionally call themselves that, which is so 2005.
 

Trunkage

Nascent Orca
Legacy
Jun 21, 2012
8,685
2,879
118
Brisbane
Gender
Cyborg
So some right wingers were all using the "ok" symbol, /pol/ started a rumor that it meant "white power" so as to slander them all as white supremacists, and you think this was done in support of white supremacy?
Did we all just lose the ability to put things in context?
 

Dirty Hipsters

This is how we praise the sun!
Legacy
Feb 7, 2011
7,887
2,235
118
Country
'Merica
Gender
3 children in a trench coat
So, by associating the ok symbol with white supremacy, you believe you are advancing the cause of white supremacy?
I don't think anyone here wants to be advancing the cause of white supremacy.
 

Trunkage

Nascent Orca
Legacy
Jun 21, 2012
8,685
2,879
118
Brisbane
Gender
Cyborg
I don't think anyone here wants to be advancing the cause of white supremacy.
I'm going to point out that making sure that white supremacist don't take any more symbols is a good thing. They took a bunch of them before without anyone pointing out what they were doing and they are now forever associated with fascist.
 

Hawki

Elite Member
Legacy
Mar 4, 2014
9,651
2,173
118
Country
Australia
Gender
Male
I'm going to point out that making sure that white supremacist don't take any more symbols is a good thing. They took a bunch of them before without anyone pointing out what they were doing and they are now forever associated with fascist.
...such as?

I can think of the Swastika, that's about it.
 

Thaluikhain

Elite Member
Legacy
Jan 16, 2010
18,580
3,539
118
...such as?

I can think of the Swastika, that's about it.
The outfits the KKK wear were inspired by (or possibly exact copies of) religious garb from Europe (sometimes still used, but a bit obscure nowdays). The US being more cultural important, the European stuff is now mostly overlooked.
 

Dwarvenhobble

Is on the Gin
May 26, 2020
5,912
646
118
The post for operation O-KKK talks very openly about how associating the symbol with white power would be good for the cause. What is the cause? Again, I want you to bear in mind that this is /pol/, a board that, by its creators own admission, was specifically intended as a dumping ground and containment for all the racists and Nazis on 4chan.

And again, it did end up being good for the cause, because a lot of news sources responded lazily (or they knew full well what they were doing but thought this story about 4chan manipulating their rivals would play well) and simply bought into the self-congratulatory rhetoric. They conveniently ignored the unanswered questions surrounding the use of the symbol in the context of the election, like what the hell that caption meant, or why this symbol in particular took off among people who coincidentally happened to be very racist.

O-KKK was never about getting people to sincerely believe that people who used that symbol were white supremacists (even though, let's be real, a lot of them were), it was about getting people to believe that stupid people (people who in most cases were never actually real) believed that. In that regard, it succeeded because people are still perpetrating this weird idea about 4chan psyops owning the libs, when in reality the real trick was getting everyone to stop looking into those unanswered questions.

The fact that we're at the point where literal mass murdering terrorists and full on pro-genocide neo-Nazis are using that symbol to convey their beliefs and people still won't shut up about some sad boys on 4chan is symptomatic of who in this situation is actually gullible.
So just to point out the very obvious here.

Yes it would be good for their cause because they knew idiots would flip out and attack people over it. That would then create resentment among those hit for in most cases likely perfectly innocent uses of it to mean OK. Because that's what's happening people are and were flipping over of stuff like that and jumping at shadows. Those people hit if they weren't happily on the more extreme left wing would be pushed to stand against said group and be seen as potential recruits for the right wing or at least create a case of "The enemy of my enemy is also my friend".

The OK sign is one of those quite ubiquitous gestures and has been a thing for years it would be like people claiming the Thumbs up sign is a White Supremacaist gesture because some whit supremacists started using it or I dunno reading books is white supremacist because some white supremacists read books.

As for mass murderers using it, the attention seeking little shitbergs will do anything to get attention. One terrorist yelled subscribe to pewdiepie and claimed he was indoctrinated via Fortnite because guess what they're popular things, get headlines and get them more attention
 

tstorm823

Elite Member
Legacy
Aug 4, 2011
6,468
923
118
Country
USA
I don't think anyone here wants to be advancing the cause of white supremacy.
I don't think anyone here intends to do that, but that doesn't mean they aren't. As I've said on many occasions, demonizing your opponents is recruitment for the demons. A Democrat may want to call a Republican a Nazi thinking it hurts that Republican, where a Nazi may want to call a Republican their ally because it helps mainstream Nazism. A Republican may want to call a Democrat a communist thinking it will hurt the Democrat, where a communist might want to call a Democrat their ally because it mainstreams communism. Associating normal people with extreme positions advances the cause of the extreme positions.
 

MrCalavera

Elite Member
Legacy
Apr 30, 2020
906
980
98
Country
Poland
...such as?

I can think of the Swastika, that's about it.
Swastika, Triskelion, Odal rune, Celtic Cross, The double Sig rune, Roman Salute, The Fasces(obv), Roman Standard(Vexillium), shaved head...

Most of it work in context of, or tandem, course. Some have fallen out of fashion. But there's plenty that's been "adopted" over the years.


A Republican may want to call a Democrat a communist thinking it will hurt the Democrat, where a communist might want to call a Democrat their ally because it mainstreams communism.
Where do you find those communists that call Democrats their allies?