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.
At this point I hope it’s not revealing too much information to point out that this incident has made the news.
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!
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.
As a neutral third party, I read what you wrote, and while you may have thought you were being clear, you were not.
-
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.
-
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.
-
I don’t know that the “Hawaii Hello” means. Do you refer to the shaka sign, i.e. “hang loose”?
-
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.
-
I don’t know where the bit about being told your culture was inferior fits in to anything.
-
Banquet Bear directly engaged your salient point, that whatever the NZ shooter was doing should somehow not apply to the United States.
Works better with “dokey.”
There was also Okeh Records. Allegedly, that name was for the label’s founder, Otto K. E. Heinemann. :dubious:
Wasn’t he Australian?
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.
Cool! I know about the label, never knew it’s story.
Motion to reprint at a cost of $53,700 passed 4 to 2.
With a bunch of posturing.
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).
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.
…they aren’t wrong.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.