White supremacists suck. I think most of us can agree on that. Any extreme is typically no good. I think most of us can also agree on that. But, imagine being so dumb that you give extremists and white supremacists power by designating things “hate symbols” because a few bad apples exist among the bunch.
That’s exactly what leftist group the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) did in a new report, according to CNN.
The “okay” symbol/hand gesture has now been designated a “hate symbol” by the ADL, citing that “the sign has been co-opted by the alt-right.”
Yep. They’re that dumb over there at the ADL.
Think about it. If the alt-right "co-opted" the symbol, then who's the other half of that "co-opt?" Oh, that's right. The rest of humanity.
They even acknowledge the real origins of this okay symbol/white supremacist hoax.
As the ADL themselves reported in 2017, with an update in 2018:
The “OK” hand gesture originated as one of these hoaxes in February 2017 when an anonymous 4channer announced “Operation O-KKK,” telling other members that “we must flood Twitter and other social media websites…claiming that the OK hand sign is a symbol of white supremacy.” The user even provided a helpful graphic showing how the letters WP (for “white power”) could be traced within an “OK” gesture. The originator and others also suggested useful hashtags to help spread the hoax, such as #PowerHandPrivilege and #NotOkay. “Leftists have dug so deep down into their lunacy,” wrote the poster, “We must force [them] to dig more, until the rest of society ain’t going anywhere near that s***.”
That’s right. Just as a reminder, it was users of the 4chan website that began the hoax in order to see if the media, politicians or anyone else would fall for it. Even with the acknowledgement by ADL, they still fell for it and gave white supremacists and extremists more power by recognizing their use of the okay hand gesture.
Even though way more everyday people use the gesture than the few actual white supremacists that still think they matter, the ADL does what the left always does — cater to the lowest common denominator of people giving their message, however stupid it may be, credence.
I’d call them morons, but that might be offensive to actual morons.
Folks, don’t let out-of-touch organizations like the ADL dictate to you what is or isn’t proper societal conduct. Keep using the okay symbol. In fact, I’d say that people — of any walk of life — need to use it more in order to reclaim it from the white supremacists that the ADL gave it to.