# "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:** 7
### Author:  [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2019, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/121 "2019-05-20T17:48:42Z")
In our Jr. High yearbook, we had a jerk flash the middle finger in his class photo. Not only did they cross out the finger, his face was crossed out as punishment. But this was only doable because they caught it at the editing stage. This was in 1973.
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### Author:  [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2019, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/122 "2019-05-20T17:57:48Z")
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> She has friends who worked on the yearbook so has some detail regarding the actual photo. Hand held upright above the shoulder taken of a yearbook staffer saying okay. No prank intended and no racist message intended. All approved by administrators before going to the printer.
At this point I hope it’s not revealing too much information to point out that [this incident has made the news](https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Suburban-High-School-Wont-Hand-Out-Yearbooks-After-Students-Display-OK-Sign-510088071.html).
> [@](#):
>
> Oak Park River Forest High School is hurriedly editing its yearbook after **a number of students** were seen making a potentially racist hand gesture, school officials said this week.
>
> **Several photos** apparently showed students making a hand symbol in the yearbook, according to school officials, that has been associated with white supremacy as well as a so-called “circle game” popular among children.
I know they’re not making any accusations of intent but it’s worth noting that the media coverage is reporting multiple examples of the gesture.
The linked article also mentions some of the previous racial incidents in the school. Yikes!
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### Author:  [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2019, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/123 "2019-05-20T21:26:41Z")
In high school, I think it was my sister’s class that had some snafu happen that meant they couldn’t get their yearbooks. They had to similarly circulate blank books for signatures and get an updated yearbook mailed out that fall.
It sucks, but it’s not the end of the world.
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### Author:  [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2019, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/124 "2019-05-20T21:39:50Z")
> [@Melbourne](#):
>
> I’ve reviewed what I wrote, and it seems to be fairly clear. I’m taking it that your inability to understand comes only from an unwillingness to engage with the ideas.
As a neutral third party, I read what you wrote, and while you may have thought you were being clear, you were not.
> [@](#):
>
> As a migrant, in Aus, I’m saddened to see you using a gesture made by a foreigner, in a foreign country, as a criteria for behavior in the USA. I know, social media, the internet, Marshall McLuhan, etc. And the Hawaii Hello is a gang symbol in NZ, so Hawaii should just say goodby to that gesture also. But as a migrant, I got pretty sad about being told that my culture was inferior, and as a corollary, I’ve never felt happy with the idea that my culture (or any ‘foreign’ culture) was superior or definitive.
1. Yes the New Zealand shooter was from New Zealand. The symbol he chose to use was NOT a New Zealand symbol, it was an international symbol by the international group of white supremacists.
2. I am guessing your sentence fragment about social media and the internet and Marshall McLuhan is supposed to be some acknowledgement of the idea that the internet allows international sharing of ideas and symbology. Yet you seem to be dismissing it while acknowledging it.
3. I don’t know that the “Hawaii Hello” means. Do you refer to the [shaka sign](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaka_sign), i.e. “hang loose”?
4. I guess you’re trying to say that as a migrant, you encountered folks using the skaka sign, and had to accept they didn’t mean it as a gang symbol. Um, yeah.
5. I don’t know where the bit about being told your culture was inferior fits in to anything.
6. **Banquet Bear** directly engaged your salient point, that whatever the NZ shooter was doing should somehow not apply to the United States.
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2019, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/125 "2019-05-20T21:58:34Z")
> [@kayaker](#):
>
> In this thread everyone spells out “Okay” or abbreviates(?) it “OK”, but in Raymond Chandler’s novels he spells it “okey”.
>
> Anyone know what that’s about?
Works better with “dokey.”
There was also [Okeh Records](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okeh_Records). _Allegedly_, that name was for the label’s founder, **O** tto **K. E. H** einemann. :dubious:
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### Author:  [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2019, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/126 "2019-05-20T22:40:05Z")
> [@Irishman](#):
>
> …
>
> 1. Yes the New Zealand shooter was from New Zealand. …
Wasn’t he Australian?
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/127 "2019-05-21T00:31:48Z")
Made it to the board meeting. A little late and still in progress.
The pictures included a selection of the diversity of the students in the school, Black, white, boys, girls, so on. Most pictures over shoulder some clearly playing the game that had become a fad in the school. None are believing there was any bad intent. Pictures taken in the Fall before hardly any of the general public was aware of the symbol being co-opted.
The concern is that it could without bad intent still cause offense and harm.
Board is discussing. The cost of reprinting would be I think they said $57K. Come out of a furniture budget.
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/128 "2019-05-21T00:47:08Z")
> [@Kent\_Clark](#):
>
> Works better with “dokey.”
>
> There was also [Okeh Records](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okeh_Records). _Allegedly_, that name was for the label’s founder, **O** tto **K. E. H** einemann. :dubious:
Cool! I know about the label, never knew it’s story.
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/129 "2019-05-21T00:55:28Z")
Motion to reprint at a cost of $53,700 passed 4 to 2.
With a bunch of posturing.
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### Author:  [@Smudge777](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smudge777)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/130 "2019-05-21T01:23:21Z")
> [@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 think this is precisely the problem. People see something that _could_ be interpreted as a symbol of racism/hate/whatever and immediately assume the worst of the person using it.
Before we start calling people racist, shouldn’t we, at the very least, wait until they say or do something unambiguously racist?
If we assume that everyone using the OK symbol is racist unless proven otherwise, sure you’ll catch a few racists in that extremely widely-thrown net, but mostly you’ll just catch people who are using the symbol in another way (or using it in the way you think, but sarcastically/ironically/jokingly). It’s a very counterproductive variety of ‘guilty until proven innocent’.
Surely we can all agree that the OK symbol has multiple meanings. Thus, in absence of other evidence, there’s no reason to assume any one of those meanings (especially the most offensive of the meanings).
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/131 "2019-05-21T01:57:18Z")
Stated logic during the board meeting was that lack of ill intent does not matter; harm can be caused without bad intent and it is still harm and that they must protect minority students from harm (and cost is immaterial). “We have a lot of work to do.” was stated, condescendingly, several times, pointed at those who disagreed.
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### Author:  [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/132 "2019-05-21T02:16:43Z")
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> **“We have a lot of work to do.”** was stated, condescendingly, several times, pointed at those who disagreed.
…they aren’t wrong.
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/133 "2019-05-21T02:18:06Z")
My yearbook was printed after graduation, so we could at least get some photos of the ceremony in there. They were passed at a “Yearbook Day” near the end of summer, before everyone went off to college. Seems to make a lot more sense than printing the yearbooks so early they can’t even get photos of graduation or the prom in there. Not to mention plenty of time to look for kids giving the finger.
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/134 "2019-05-21T03:18:25Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#):
>
> …they aren’t wrong.
There is always a lot of work to be done. Board and community members can respectfully disagree about what that work is without gratuitous condescension.
FWIW from the just sent email:
> [@](#):
>
> … The yearbook is being reprinted because it contained 18 photos of clubs or teams in which students of various races, ethnicities, genders, and grades made a hand gesture–an upside-down OK sign–that has different meanings. In some cases, it’s used in what is known as the circle game. However, the sign has more recently become associated with White nationalism. The photos in question, as well as all the other club team/photos in which students are striking poses and making gestures, will be replaced with the straight-forward group shots.
>
> Use of the upside-down OK to mean White Power is an emerging issue. According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), in 2017 members of the website 4chan came up with a hoax to falsely promote the gesture as a hate symbol. However, the ADL says, as of this year, at least some White supremacists are using the gesture as an actual symbol of White Power.Recent media events have heightened public awareness of the symbol’s newer implications. The shooter who killed 50 people at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, flashed the sign in court on March 16, 2019. Wrigley Field has banned a White man who made the gesture behind a Black broadcaster at the Chicago Cubs game on May 7.
>
> The “Tabula” photographs in question were taken of clubs or teams in mid-October. Those pages were reviewed and shipped to the printer in early December, before the gesture was widely known to have any association with white nationalism. I want to be clear that we are not making any presumptions about students’ intent in using the gesture.
>
> Regardless of intent, however, there is a real and negative impact. Many students, not only our students of color, experience this gesture as a symbol of White supremacy. Potentially subjecting our students to this trauma is simply not acceptable.
>
> Oak Park and River Forest High School is on the leading edge of addressing this issue. We are concerned that the gesture will become more closely associated with White supremacy in the future. Publishing the photos in question could not only harm students today but could subject students to potentially a lifetime of questions or penalty from colleges, employers, etc. …
Not exactly how things were stated during the meeting but that’s how things go.
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### Author:  [@Covfefe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Covfefe)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/135 "2019-05-21T04:21:22Z")
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> The school board recently passed "a new racial equity policy. The aim is to create an environment where students’ academic achievement and social and emotional growth are no longer predictable by race, socioeconomic status, or other social factors …
I’m not sure this is realistic for any school with low SES students that isn’t highly selective in admittance. The roots of these inequalities often run **deep**.
I find the usage of the word “predictable” here troubling. I suppose it could be charitably interpreted from the students’ perspective as an environment of expanded possibilities. To me it comes off revealing the perspective of adults who are tired of mostly knowing in advance who will struggle the most academically and behaviorally.
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### Author:  [@Covfefe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Covfefe)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/136 "2019-05-21T06:40:43Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Regardless of intent, however, there is a real and negative impact. Many students, not only our students of color, experience this gesture as a symbol of White supremacy. Potentially subjecting our students to this trauma is simply not acceptable.
Humans are a superstitious lot with limited capacities for solving complex problems so I’m not surprised, though I hope no expert on trauma was consulted for this statement.
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### Author:  [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/137 "2019-05-21T10:02:39Z")
I have seen a similar issue where they took school class photos and some of the kids were secretly flashing gang signs which you had to recognize and sometimes use a magnifying glass to find but when found, they had to pull the entire photo.
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### Author:  [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/138 "2019-05-21T12:40:06Z")
Those of you who insist that the OK symbol surreptitiously used is purely an amusing attempt at riling up the overly-sensitive SJWs, might I suggest you take a look at a newly-emerging subreddit by the name of [Frenworld](https://www.reddit.com/r/frenworld/)?
Oh, sure, it’s just a humorous cartoon clown frog… which says “Hi!” to a clown by the name of “Honkler” a lot. And who gets really sad when “nonfrens” with big noses and funny little hats get involved with international banking. You know, that sort of thing. Just harmless fun, designed merely to get a rise out of those easy-to-offend SJWs.
Whatever the origin of the surreptitious OK symbol was, it’s now been co-opted by \*actual \*racists, and should be rightfully smacked down.
The white-power OK and, now, Frenworld, is just another way of saying “It’s just a prank, bro!” whenever someone gets called out for being a bigot.
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/139 "2019-05-21T13:18:35Z")
> [@Lightnin](#):
>
> Those of you who insist that the OK symbol surreptitiously used is purely an amusing attempt at riling up the overly-sensitive …
I don’t think there is anyone who has taken that position. There was discussion that it allegedly started out that way but agreement that whether that is true or not it is not now and in particular not for this instance the case.
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### Author:  [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/140 "2019-05-21T14:18:21Z")
I can’t remember the last time I used an OK hand sign. Thumbs up always. Even in emojis.
Nor have I recalled it being extensively used any time in the recent past. If I saw a big resurgence of it’s use, I might find that weird unless there was an obvious reason. I wouldn’t assume nefarious, but maybe I’d give it a second look.
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