Is This an Innocent OK Sign or a White Symbol of Power?
This post is about Kanye West ‘s week at MAGA . Sorry. As you’ve probably heard, Kanye is back on Twitter, this time with a quirky and growing series of tweets that seem to endorse eccentric conservatives and even Donald Trump. Each tweet inspires the explainer . Yesterday, Kanye tweeted a photo of him wearing a MAGA hat next to a man giving an OK sign. Which is alarming because the OK sign is a kind of symbol of white supremacy.
If you are already familiar with the strange and silly recent history of the OK sign, skip to the end. (And if you don’t like what we’re talking about at all, save yourself! Close the tab! Read about green tomatoes !) But otherwise:
Around 2015, the OK sign became popular with Trump supporters. Know Your Meme is a detailed story showcasing its use by figures such as Mike Chernovich ( a brain pill salesman who believes Hillary Clinton has organized a pedophile network of pizzerias) and Milo Yiannopoulos (who swears that he is not a neo-Nazi. but surrounds him himself with neo-Nazis ). Both of these people thrive on publicity and controversy, which largely explains what happened next.
At some point, many people began to identify the OK symbol as a white symbol of power. One explanation is that the three outstretched fingers form the letter W, and the circle and palm form the letter P. The thread on 4chan (which is similar to Reddit, but worse) is supposedly helping to spread rumors of “white power” as a hoax. The Anti-Defamation League says the OK sign is not a white symbol of strength, using 4chan as evidence .
But as Know Your Meme points out, the 4chan branch didn’t show up until 2017, after years of debate. Back on election night, outspoken white supremacist Richard Spencer (who was later hit on TV) signaled OK in front of the Trump International Hotel.
The right-wingers making the OK symbol – those who claim to be not white supremacists – loved the controversy because it’s just an OK sign! How foolish to call such an innocent thing racist! Look, liberals and minorities have made this sign!
So alt rulers and Trump supporters started making the OK sign everywhere and then laughing when people accused them of being racist. “Ha ha!” they went. “To make fun of you! I’m not a racist, I just purposely made you think I’m a racist!” Intern White House Jack Breyer put ‘OK’ on the official class photograph , while the other forty-odd people in the photograph raised their thumbs When asked by the media if he was showing this as a sign of white strength, he tweeted a sarcastic apology :
In some of our trainee photos, I mimicked the OK sign that the president sometimes makes. It was stupid. I had to listen to the commander-in-chief and show him a thumbs up.
I am proud of my Jewish heritage and categorically reject the hateful views associated with the racist organizations of the white government. I would never go with them for a common cause.
But according to the Daily Mail , Breuer’s LinkedIn reports that he interned former White House adviser, Muslim prohibitionist and professional racist Stephen Miller. (Since then, Breuer has apparently purged Miller’s name from his LinkedIn .) Miller’s long history of anti-immigration efforts is perfectly in line with the goals of white supremacists.
Naturally, Miller flashed the OK sign in the White House photographs – or some weird version of the OK sign that looks a lot like the white gang sign. Accident or dog whistle? The Outline requested multiple sources and was unable to resolve .
But regardless of whether the OK sign ever meant “I’m a white supremacist” in the hands of a Trump supporter, it now means, “I agree that you think I’m a white supremacist,” just to joke. It is difficult to argue that you are not racist when you try to trick people into thinking you are racist .
Of course, some people just blink innocently with an OK sign because, well, that’s OK too, and they’ve never heard otherwise. Brad Kim, head of Know Your Meme, told Lifehacker via email:
The OK sign now has several different meanings for people with different meme / media literacy levels:
1) those who received the memo (about the alt-right association) and now consider it a stigma;
2) those who received the memo and are now using it as a dog whistle; (and enjoy the land of believable denial, as you put it)
3) those who did not receive the memo and continue to use the symbol in the meaning of “everything is in order”;
4) those who have received aide-memoire and seen the mark spread and are now using it as a trigger for a value shock or a means of reappropriation.
Okay, so the OK sign in Kanye’s photo is a white sign of strength? Probably no. But it seems, yes. Sorry.
The guy who made the character is Lyor Cohen, head of global YouTube, music. A YouTube spokesperson told TMZ that Cohen is using the mark to represent the record label he founded, 300 Entertainment , which has signed artists such as Fetty Wap, Hopsin, Coheed and Cambria. (Cohen was also the head of Def Jam in the 1980s.) It seems highly unlikely that Cohen flashed a white sign of power.
Of course, it seemed unlikely that Kanye West would wear a MAGA hat. But here he is sitting next to Cohen, quite possibly realizing what this OK sign will mean for many on the right. Brad Kim thinks Kanye knew exactly what he was doing:
As for Kanye, I personally believe that he has always been keen on the media and the ways to manipulate them, and he bathes in the ambiguity of OK gestures in his favor.
What’s the bottom line? According to media reports, this may spoil Kanye’s music and legacy, but it won’t change anything ; it can help or hurt the Republican Party; and whether or not Kanye has a chance to run for president.
The OK sign means and does not mean the strength of whites, many people using it are and are not Nazis, Kanye supports and does not support Donald Trump, and all this does not matter. What a fucking week.