# "Okay" sign NOT? High School Year book pulled
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [May 17, 2019, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117 "2019-05-17T14:50:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2019, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/21 "2019-05-17T16:50:27Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#):
>
> Do either of you think Prince Harry, of [nazi-costume-wearing fame](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-16/the-sun-shows-prince-harry-wearing-nazi-uniform/9752022), is a racist?
Are you making the world a better place right now by continuing to defend trolls who, by your own admission, cause (some) harm and make the world a worse place with their behavior?
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### Author:  [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2019, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/22 "2019-05-17T16:54:33Z")
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> Eve before planned distribution of our community’s High School yearbook’s to the student’s, it is noted that a few of the photos have kids photographed presumably using the hand sign in its usual benign intent, ignorant of its recent hijack by the alt-right.
>
> Seniors are not getting their yearbooks, not getting the tradition of wishing each other wishes in it, because of the possibility that some may take offense at something that there is no reason to believe was meant to offend and which does not have any offensive meaning to most, especially High Schoolers. (My High School senior at least was completely unaware of any negative meaning to the “okay” sign, as was I, and is a bit upset at not getting her yearbook.)
I _guarantee_ you that, with possible lone exceptions like your kid, high schoolers as a group are _keenly_ aware of the gesture’s racist significance.
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### Author:  [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2019, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/23 "2019-05-17T16:55:10Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#):
>
> Do either of you think Prince Harry, of [nazi-costume-wearing fame](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-16/the-sun-shows-prince-harry-wearing-nazi-uniform/9752022), is a racist?
Fifteen years ago, he hasn’t done anything similar since then, and he isn’t my Prince anyway.
He was a stupid kid.
---
### Author:  [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2019, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/24 "2019-05-17T17:09:33Z")
> [@steronz](#):
>
> Are you making the world a better place right now by continuing to defend trolls who, by your own admission, cause (some) harm and make the world a worse place with their behavior?
Well, currently I’m addressing the other type of behavior I described in my post:
> [@HurricaneDitka](#):
>
> … I think the world would be a better place if people didn’t get triggered by “It’s OK to be white” signs"…
So … yes, I am making the world a better place.
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### Author:  [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2019, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/25 "2019-05-17T17:12:04Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#):
>
> In other words, do you really think the location / orientation is a good way to determine intent? I don’t.
If you make a OK symbol, turn it upside down and put it at your belt, one thing I can be damned sure of is that you don’t mean “OK!”
Maybe you mean White Power, maybe you’re playing a prank, maybe you’re playing the circle game, but you’re not saying OK.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2019, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/26 "2019-05-17T17:14:28Z")
One person’s “trigger” is another person’s recognition of blatant racism that should be called out.
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### Author:  [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2019, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/27 "2019-05-17T17:22:23Z")
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> This is very worrisome logic - 4chan started the “Okay hand sign is racist” joke \*with the precise intent of getting people to overreact to it, and that’s exactly what society is doing. \*It’s basically giving free license to people to distort something until we can’t even enjoy normal mundane things anymore.
>
> What if 4chan decides that it wants to pretend that “Hello” is a racist codeterm? Would we get banned from saying “hello?”
Part of the “prank” included them trying to spread the word that’s clapping in anti-feminist.
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### Author:  [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2019, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/28 "2019-05-17T17:24:20Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> One person’s “trigger” is another person’s recognition of blatant racism that should be called out.
Sure, just realize that if you’re “calling out” mundane things like “It’s OK to be white” or the OK sign, you’re doing exactly what 4chan wants you to.
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### Author:  [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2019, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/29 "2019-05-17T17:26:52Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#):
>
> Sure, just realize that if you’re “calling out” mundane things like “It’s OK to be white” or the OK sign, you’re doing exactly what 4chan wants you to.
How can we tell if we’re playing into 4chan’s hands or if we’re calling out actual racists who are using the symbol unironically?
Do you have any reason to believe the students in question pictured in this yearbook are the former and not the latter?
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### Author:  [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2019, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/30 "2019-05-17T17:30:15Z")
> [@steronz](#):
>
> How can we tell if we’re playing into 4chan’s hands or if we’re calling out actual racists who are using the symbol unironically?
>
> Do you have any reason to believe the students in question pictured in this yearbook are the former and not the latter?
I try to err on the side of not calling people racists without good evidence to suggest it’s the case. I don’t consider a picture of someone making the “OK” symbol, by itself, to be “good evidence”.
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### Author:  [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2019, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/31 "2019-05-17T17:35:22Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#):
>
> I try to err on the side of not calling people racists without good evidence to suggest it’s the case. I don’t consider a picture of someone making the “OK” symbol, by itself, to be “good evidence”.
Do you know that the school is acting only on the OK symbol “by itself?”
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2019, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/32 "2019-05-17T17:40:17Z")
> [@bobot](#):
>
> An extended middle finger doesn’t _really_ mean anything, either. Until people agree about it’s meaning, and it is used to express that meaning. Flip off the next traffic court judge you face, then explain that it doesn’t mean what he thinks it means.
Yes.
The sign is mostly agreed to mean “okay” and in the context of High Schoolers also as part of a game. A _few_ have imposed another meaning upon it.
> [@Cheesesteak](#):
>
> If they’re making a traditional up high OK sign like in the OK emoji, or the first picture in your linkI think folks are being overly sensitive.
>
> If they’re making the upside down at the waist “secret symbol” style OK sign that the Christchurch killer used in your link, then no, you don’t get to argue that it’s just an OK sign.
>
> The Swastika was a traditional symbol long before the Nazi’s co-opted it, but co-opt it they did, they ruined the symbol with their hatred. Other hate groups have ruined the upside down-at the waist OK symbol that some kids used for the “circle game”. So, find a new way to fool your friends into letting you punch them, because some shitheads have ruined the circle.
Two points here.
One you are simply wrong in your belief about how to interpret some code based on body position. From the linked article:
> [@](#):
>
> Context, then, is key: which is why Estonia’s EKRE, who Marine Le Pen was visiting in May, have come under fire.
>
> The group’s two most prominent leaders, father and son Mart and Martin Helme, both made the symbol while being sworn into office as they entered government.
>
> Mr Helme the senior has suggested that indigenous, white Estonians are being “replaced” by immigrants, while his son has previously said “I want Estonia to be a white country”.
The pictures of those two both have them making a traditional up high “okay” sign, above the shoulder level. Still, the context is key and in that context the intent was clear: it was a white nationalist signifier.
Do you see a big difference between the first picture in my link that you say is inoffensive, and the third, which are widely agreed to have been racist gestures. (Because context is key.)
Now neither I nor you nor most of the students at this school know where the kid in photograph was holding his hand, caught in a candid playing the game, or giving an okay sign in answer to a question, or in a group photo. The student editors and their teacher mentors do know and at the time of putting the book together saw nothing offensive _within the context_.
And let’s be very clear: _there is no accusation being made of any offensive intent._ The decision to not distribute the yearbook is explained explicitly stating the decision is independent of, _“regardless of intent”_. No matter what the context and what the intent, no matter how benign, a gesture widely understood by most of the world, and perhaps more importantly, the overwhelming majority of the student community, to be of benign, albeit possibly goofy, meaning, being present in the yearbook means that there is some chance that someone will be offended, so all are to be denied their yearbooks.
White nationalists have claimed the numbers 88 and 14 as signifiers as well and in certain contexts that intent is clear. Should all math and history books in the school be pulled if they contain those numbers because in certain contexts they are of that meaning and someone might be offended?
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### Author:  [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2019, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/33 "2019-05-17T17:43:20Z")
> [@steronz](#):
>
> Do you know that the school is acting only on the OK symbol “by itself?”
All I have to go on is in the OP, which said that the school emailed the parents:
> [@](#):
>
> Regardless of intent, the potential negative impact of this gesture has led us to decide that we cannot distribute the yearbook as is.
If the email also contained information that some of the kids making the gesture had also been dressing up in white masks and burning crosses, or were regular contributors to Stormfront or something along those lines, the OP left it out of the explanation, so AFAIK, the school is acting only on the OK symbol “by itself”. We’re getting all the information we have about it second- or third-hand, so we can’t claim certainty about much, but just like my erring on the side of not calling people racists without good evidence, we probably shouldn’t assume there’s more to the story when we don’t have any evidence at all to suggest there might be more, and we do have a snippet from an email from the school saying that it’s due to the OK symbol.
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### Author:  [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2019, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/34 "2019-05-17T17:47:08Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#):
>
> All I have to go on is in the OP, which said that the school emailed the parents:
>
> If the email also contained information that some of the kids making the gesture had also been dressing up in white masks and burning crosses, or were regular contributors to Stormfront or something along those lines, the OP left it out of the explanation, so AFAIK, the school is acting only on the OK symbol “by itself”. We’re getting all the information we have about it second- or third-hand, so we can’t claim certainty about much, but just like my erring on the side of not calling people racists without good evidence, we probably shouldn’t assume there’s more to the story when we don’t have any evidence at all to suggest there might be more, and we do have a snippet from an email from the school saying that it’s due to the OK symbol.
But you’ve got no problem assuming that people are “triggered.”
We’ve got 3 possibilities –
1. The school administrators are easily triggered liberal snowflakes
2. The school is simply making a slightly difference calculation and erring on the side of not giving racists a platform, even though they don’t suspect actual racism and fully understand the history and trollish nature of this “prank”
3. There’s more to the story that we don’t know and the school is 1000% in the right
In only one of those cases are you making the world a better place by defending the trolls, and that’s by your own admission. That’s a swell calculus, you’ve made.
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### Author:  [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2019, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/35 "2019-05-17T17:51:46Z")
> [@steronz](#):
>
> How can we tell if we’re playing into 4chan’s hands or if we’re calling out actual racists who are using the symbol unironically?
You can’t. Therefore, you must always assume racism.
We cannot afford to take chances. If some troll tells us something, we have to assume it is the God’s honest truth. Because, after all, how can you tell?
Regards,
Shodan
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### Author:  [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2019, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/36 "2019-05-17T17:53:04Z")
> [@Shodan](#):
>
> You can’t. Therefore, you must always assume racism.
>
> We cannot afford to take chances. If some troll tells us something, we have to assume it is the God’s honest truth. Because, after all, how can you tell?
>
> Regards,
> Shodan
That’s a false dichotomy and you’re smart enough to know that.
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### Author:  [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2019, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/37 "2019-05-17T17:55:54Z")
Yeah! Someone might call you “triggered”. How could a man face himself in the mirror after such a powerful blow?
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### Author:  [@Royal\_Nonesutch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Royal_Nonesutch)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2019, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/38 "2019-05-17T17:58:38Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#):
>
> I try to err on the side of not calling people racists without good evidence to suggest it’s the case.
Boy howdy, is this ever the wrong place for you.
The Straight Dope, home of the “Smartest, Hippest”, is seemingly chock full of lily-white American people achingly desperate to call other lily-white American people Nazis, White Supremicists, Secret Klansmen, etc., etc., etc., while at the same time knowingly assuring themselves that even though America is a vile, bigoted, savage hellhole, the rest of the world is a peaceful, tranquil, racially-harmonious paradise, all because they once spent two whole weeks on vacation in Munich or Montreal.
It makes this decidedly non lily-white American grateful as Garcia that I am in a position to sit back and laugh at the self-righteousness while living less than 300 miles from 5 different countries, all but one of which actually LIKE America and Americans.
(although I really do like the beer and music threads here…;))
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### Author:  [@UnwittingAmericans](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UnwittingAmericans)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2019, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/39 "2019-05-17T17:59:00Z")
Destination on your left. \>bing\< You have arrived.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2019, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/40 "2019-05-17T18:02:21Z")
> [@steronz](#):
>
> That’s a false dichotomy and you’re smart enough to know that.
Or you think we are dumb enough not to.
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