# "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:** 8
### Author:  [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/141 "2019-05-21T14:48:25Z")
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> Motion to reprint at a cost of $53,700 passed 4 to 2.
>
> With a bunch of posturing.
Sounds like we now know the actual cost of fighting for social justice in this case. I hope the students and faculty don’t mind some older furniture for a while.
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### Author:  [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/142 "2019-05-21T14:57:42Z")
> [@bobot](#):
>
> Wasn’t he Australian?
Ack, good point, so change that to “1. Yes the New Zealand shooter was [del]from[/del] in New Zealand…”
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### Author:  [@ohiomstr2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ohiomstr2)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/143 "2019-05-21T16:22:50Z")
Anyone care to think that the teenager making the sign was just being an ignorant asshole? May not even know what the sign was supposed to mean other than it was offensive?
Teenagers are kind of good at that sort of thing .
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### Author:  [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/144 "2019-05-21T16:25:38Z")
> [@ohiomstr2](#):
>
> Anyone care to think that the teenager making the sign was just being an ignorant asshole? May not even know what the sign was supposed to mean other than it was offensive?
>
> Teenagers are kind of good at that sort of thing .
Being an ignorant asshole has real world consequences, and the sooner they learn this lesson the better.
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### Author:  [@Covfefe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Covfefe)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/145 "2019-05-21T17:49:00Z")
The Anti-Defamation League (quoted in the OP’s link and can be researched elsewhere) is making a lot more sense on this than some of you.
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### Author:  [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/146 "2019-05-21T18:05:03Z")
Intriguing.
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### Author:  [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/147 "2019-05-21T18:15:13Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#):
>
> Sounds like we now know the actual cost of fighting for social justice in this case. I hope the students and faculty don’t mind some older furniture for a while.
I’m sure they mind old furniture less than white power symbols in the yearbook.
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### Author:  [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/148 "2019-05-21T18:29:00Z")
> [@Lightnin](#):
>
> 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/)?
Holy crap was that the dumbest, most idiotic thing I’ve seen in a long while (the subreddit, not your post).
How you can offer that as proof of anything beside there are a lot of morons on the Internet is beyond me.
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### Author:  [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/149 "2019-05-21T18:32:20Z")
> [@Procrustus](#):
>
> I’m sure they mind old furniture less than white power symbols in the yearbook.
I agree. That’s rather obvious from their decision to purchase $53,700 of new yearbooks rather than $53,700 of new furniture.
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### Author:  [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/150 "2019-05-21T18:38:31Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#):
>
> Being an ignorant asshole has real world consequences, and the sooner they learn this lesson the better.
And before you retort, kids, remember that you can’t _all_ be president.
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### Author:  [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/151 "2019-05-21T18:50:05Z")
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> 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:
> Not exactly how things were stated during the meeting but that’s how things go.
So silly. It’s only a matter of time before schools start monitoring social media and smart speakers for wrongthink.
That said, their yearbook their rules.
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### Author:  [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/152 "2019-05-21T18:53:00Z")
> [@Covfefe](#):
>
> 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.
Grades will be subjected to an adversity curve.
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/153 "2019-05-21T21:06:45Z")
> [@ohiomstr2](#):
>
> Anyone care to think that the teenager making the sign was just being an ignorant asshole? May not even know what the sign was supposed to mean other than it was offensive?
>
> Teenagers are kind of good at that sort of thing .
Didn’t read the quote from DSeid’s post from last night, did you?
> [@within a quote](#):
>
> … 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.
One kid doing on ignorant thing in one photo is an ignorant asshole. Multiple groups of kids doing the same thing in 18 different photos may still be a youthful prank, but _ **it’s a pretty damn well organized youthful prank.** _
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### Author:  [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/154 "2019-05-21T23:00:22Z")
> [@Kent\_Clark](#):
>
> Didn’t read the quote from DSeid’s post from last night, did you?
>
> One kid doing on ignorant thing in one photo is an ignorant asshole. Multiple groups of kids doing the same thing in 18 different photos may still be a youthful prank, but _ **it’s a pretty damn well organized youthful prank.** _
I mean, did **you**?
> [@](#):
>
> … 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.
Unless you contend that the kids are psychic, it’s a hell of a lot more likely they were playing [the circle game](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=The%20Circle%20Game) than trying to be divisive. Did “[the game](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=the%20game)” exist when you were a kid? Pretty much the same silly goal of irritating people, but without a gesture. It was popular when I was a teenager to annoy other people by claiming to have lost the game, which makes them lose too because they’re also thinking about it.
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### Author:  [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2019, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/155 "2019-05-21T23:31:47Z")
> [@elfkin477](#):
>
> Unless you contend that the kids are psychic, it’s a hell of a lot more likely they were playing [the circle game](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=The%20Circle%20Game) than trying to be divisive.
The school is being a bit cheeky here, Oct 2018 was not “before the gesture was widely known to have any association with white nationalism.” Maybe it wasn’t “widely known” among yearbook staff and administrators, but the ADL article that has been posted here announcing the symbol’s hijacking by white nationalists is dated 1 May 2017, and obviously the hoax goes back farther than that. [We covered it here on the dope in September last year](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=861857).
Personally, I think the school is going out of its way not to make accusations of either racism or even trolling, which (as has been brought up here) is the point of using it. You can always deny your true intention, and short of someone snitching or text messages discussing the plan, you’re pretty much untouchable.
We’ve gone from 1 innocuous candid, to several students, to now 18 instances. I’d be surprised if most of them weren’t intentional, and the school probably knows that which is why they’re going to shell out $54k to fix it. But we’ll never know.
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### Author:  [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2019, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/156 "2019-05-22T14:09:39Z")
Kids of various races and ethnicities were making a white power symbol? Seems unlikely. Whenever I’ve seen pictures like this in memes or whatever, I thought it was the circle game, which definitely existed almost 30 years ago when I was a kid. The rules of the circle game were that it had to be below the waist.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2019, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/157 "2019-05-23T01:21:28Z")
> [@Smudge777](#):
>
> 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?
**We never called the people racist.** We called the sign a racist symbol. And it is one.
But, no, we do not need something “unambiguously racist” to declare someone or something racist. That is the bullshit special pleading that is constantly used to defend racists. In reality, we look for “more likely than not” not “unambiguous proof.”
And, even if we’re not sure the _person_ is racist, we should call out racist actions. The only way to stop racism is to tell people when their actions are racist.
> [@](#):
>
> If we assume that everyone using the OK symbol is racist unless proven otherwise
**We are not doing this.** We’ve said it over and over. The Nazi sign and the OK symbolr ARE TWO DIFFERENT SYMBOLS. You’re perpetuating their narrative by calling it the OK symbol. The OK symbol is face up, and made big and noticeable, not face down and hidden. It is faced forward, and multiple people do not make it in a photo.
These kids are not using the OK symbol, so the rest of your argument fails. Your entire post is made up of statements that are untrue.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2019, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/158 "2019-05-23T01:43:51Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#):
>
> To me, at least, the term SJW (with or without a modifying adjective) is ALWAYS a pejorative term, intended to imply that the target is, at best, a non-serious, bandwagon-hopping dilettante who is more interested in telegraphing their membership in the morally right side in every situation than in actually DOING the right thing, and can therefore have their every utterance dismissed out of hand.
That is indeed what it means. But the thing with pejoratives is that sometimes the people who are so attacked will reclaim the pejorative as their own. (See, for example, “queer,” “gay,” “nigga” (which is slightly modified).
I for one think it’s ridiculous that a term “social justice warrior” is claimed as a negative thing. Social justice is a positive concept, and being a warrior for a good cause is a good thing.
So, at times, I will reclaim the term. It’s usually in the context of saying “I’ll receive that as a compliment.” I’ll also sometimes use the words to point out that, if you are anti-SJW, you’re saying you’re against social justice, which means you are pro-bigotry.
None of this is to say that the people on the social justice side are always perfect. They can make mistakes. But I don’t attribute it to this concept that they are all just faking. I attribute it to the fact that they are kids and they are learning.
There are always mistakes made in the push for progress. It’s silly to demand everyone handle everything perfectly. And it’s really silly to use the mistakes as proof that the whole concept is bad.
So I do try to reclaim the concept. And so do others.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2019, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/159 "2019-05-23T01:59:20Z")
I keep seeing the circle game being brought up. But it seems a lot of people don’t know what it is. Here’s the first part of the link:
The game starts out when the Offensive Player creates a circle with their thumb and forefinger, not unlike an “A-Okay” signal, somewhere below his waist.
His goal is to trick another person into looking at his hand. If the Victim looks at the hand, he has lost the game, and is subsequently hit on the bicep with a closed fist, by the offensive player.
Now there should be one thing you notice about this. The game is to make someone else look. If you see them looking, you get to punch them.
So, **how the fuck is this supposed to work in photographs**? At best, you might accidentally take a picture of someone playing the game. But then, why would multiple people do it at the exact same time, with none of them in any position to be able to see the other person do it?
No, the circle game is as bad an explanation as the OK symbol. It does not fit the circumstances.
So can we give up on these obviously erroneous explanations?
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2019, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-sign-not-high-school-year-book-pulled/834117/160 "2019-05-23T02:51:58Z")
> [@steronz](#):
>
> The school is being a bit cheeky here, Oct 2018 was not “before the gesture was widely known to have any association with white nationalism.” Maybe it wasn’t “widely known” among yearbook staff and administrators, but the ADL article that has been posted here announcing the symbol’s hijacking by white nationalists is dated 1 May 2017, and obviously the hoax goes back farther than that. [We covered it here on the dope in September last year](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=861857).
>
> Personally, I think the school is going out of its way not to make accusations of either racism or even trolling, which (as has been brought up here) is the point of using it. You can always deny your true intention, and short of someone snitching or text messages discussing the plan, you’re pretty much untouchable.
>
> We’ve gone from 1 innocuous candid, to several students, to now 18 instances. I’d be surprised if most of them weren’t intentional, and the school probably knows that which is why they’re going to shell out $54k to fix it. But we’ll never know.
It is very likely that the symbol was widely known among white nationalists before October 2017. And among those who follow what the current fads are among white nationalists, likely a inclusive of a few of this board. But even after Christchurch and the jerk at the Cubs game, it is still not something most in my community of well-educated and news following adults have known about, and it is a simple untruth to claim that it was widely known among the general public or among High School students in October '18.
But sure, High School students at this school work well together and can coordinate across racial groups, clubs, sports, and gender, to pull off a prank flashing a white power hate sign! And do it in a way that no one got wind of it too!!! Dang they are good!
How the fuck something is supposed to work in photographs is possibly that referencing the apparently faddishly popular game in the group photo became a thing to do.
But sure you want to ignore that this was kids of various races and ethnicities and assume what the school administrators and board clearly say is not true. And **BigT** ignorantly and arrogantly wants to claim expertise that the use upside down is clear a hate sign and above the shoulder right side up is “okay” - independent of any context - ignoring the fact that use above the shoulder right side up is clearly a hate sign in context of the original linked article, and that many kids are using the sign low as a play item understood by all involved as being that.
The administration is as unto a Beavis and Butthead cartoon “He said ‘butt’ (heh heh heh)” Words and symbols have meanings IN CONTEXTS. Intent _does_ matter.
It is easily imaginable for white nationalists to co-opt other words or symbols as their deniable signifier in the near future, a meaning understandable by context … could be just saying the word “Truth!” as a single word, or claiming that flashing the V (previously for victory or peace) now means support for their cause. If they do that is everyone else to stop saying the word “truth” or using the sign? Do we grant them that power?
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