OK, who could be so stupid as to flash the “OK” sign for a picture in the year 2021?
A year when the OK sign is no longer, well, OK.
Who, indeed? In this case, the “who” was me.
I'm a newsman, albeit an often-spacey and mostly retired one, so you might think I would have known that the OK sign that has been around at least since I was a kid has been usurped by evil forces for purposes that are far from OK. White supremacist thugs now use it as a symbol of white power and hate.
But then, everybody knows that, right? Well, apparently not everybody. Like me, for example.
It started in such an innocent, upbeat way. There I was happily sitting behind the curtain in Station 7 of Monument Health’s COVID vaccination clinic at the Rushmore Mall here in Rapid City Monday night, ready to get the first of two protective pokes — administered three weeks apart — that I’d been waiting for for months. I was giddy. I was relieved. I was mugging for the camera held by my former Rapid City Journal colleague, Dan Daly, who came out after work hours to snap a picture to help promote vaccinations for Monument.
As I finally settled in to get the long-awaited shot, I was about as happy as a man could be with a needle coming at him. Because the impending poke was an almost-pain-free symbol of the societal “OK” that finally seems to be in sight after this long, horrible year of COVID-19 infections and deaths.
Which has been far, far, far from OK. So an “OK” sign seemed more than just OK. It seemed perfect.
That’s how I ended up grinning (under my mask) for Dan’s camera and flashing that once widely used, widely embraced “OK” sign.
But my smile started to fade when …
Not until I put the picture up on my Facebook page the next day with an update explaining the ease with which I got the shot and process I went through did I begin to understand there was a problem. But not at first.
Positive comments on the picture and update and the vaccines were pouring in on my page, with lots of “likes” and quite a few “loves.”
Nobody mentioned the “OK” sign until somewhere down in the comments, when one of my Facebook friends asked: “Isn’t that some kind of gang sign or signal?”
At first, I snorted. But that was followed quickly by a vague feeling of discomfort, as if my subconscious was asking my conscious what the heck it had been thinking. But I wasn’t worried then about white supremacists and stolen symbols. The idea that the “OK” sign had been appropriated as a gang symbol seemed more plausible. They have hand signals, after all. I knew that, although I couldn’t have shown you what one looked like.
Had I just unwittingly flashed one of them? Well, sort of, but it’s a really big gang, unfortunately. A big gang of racists.
A quick Google search revealed what my knowledge or recollection had not: The “OK” sign isn’t what it used to be. It has been stolen by the white supremacists. Depending on how you hold the other three fingers when you make an “o” with your thumb and index finger, you can make a “W” with the others. For white power.
Who knew? Well, lots of people. And maybe I did at one time, too. I’m honestly not sure. The Google search showed me that there was a flurry of coverage at the national level of the “OK” sign issue a couple of years ago. It was coverage you’d think I would have noted and should have remembered.
Boy, talk about picking the wrong one
If I noted it, I didn’t remember it, at least not as I was watching the needle come my way and thinking about ways to celebrate for the camera. I picked the wrong way.
Initially, after I got off Google with a bit of a sick stomach, I was going to crop the picture on my Facebook page right away to get rid of the now-offensive symbol. But then I decided to start a discussion on the issue first, writing a brief Facebook update explaining things and asking for opinions.
Then I took a short walk. And when I returned, there were plenty of ideas waiting.
The first one said: “Leave it. It’s our time-honored sign.”
And the second comment, which came from former RC Journal editor and all-around-skilled newsman Jim Carrier, might have been my favorite: “I noticed it. But I assumed you were clueless. Leave it - until Q calls.”
You can never go wrong by assuming I was clueless. And I’m happy to report that Q hasn’t called yet.
Others on Facebook said, “Leave it. It conveys what you wanted to, that we’re going to be OK” and “Let’s not validate white supremacy by allowing them to make any rules.”
“When we learn, we do better”
There were plenty of strong opinions on the other side, too, including this from another former Journal colleague, Ruth Milne:
“Time passes and meanings change. The Hotel Alex Johnson will forever be explaining that those aren’t swastikas all over the 1920s lobby. Up to you whether you want it to be a lobby swastika or not.”
And this from my buddy Nick Nemec: “Crop it out. When we learn better, we do better.”
After that, there were comments about the “OK” sign also being used by officials to signal a three-pointer in basketball and as a pretty important signal between scuba divers underwater.
There was a picture of Barack Obama using the sign, obviously to mean “OK.” I don’t know if he still uses it as an “OK” sign. But either way, it’s a lot different for him than for me, obviously.
So comments were on both sides and both fun and meaningful. Like this one from Gretchen Lord Anderson, a former reporter who later served as press secretary for then-Gov. George Mickelson:
“Maybe you have re-appropriated the OK sign away from the white supremacists. What self-respecting white supremacist would want to be associated with you?”
That’s a fair question. And I take it a compliment. I only wish I could re-appropriate the OK sign from the racists who have stolen it, from me and from many others. But that’s probably not likely. Once soiled, symbols are hard to clean.
Regardless of how I might see the “OK” sign myself, I couldn’t in good conscience leave the now-defiled, mis-appropriated symbol hanging over both my head in the picture and over the good news of the vaccine and my own shot on the update. So crop it out I did, leaving my arm raised in the air with my hand and offending symbol chopped off.
Next time I’ll go with “thumbs up.”
Unless, of course, some other evil group steals that one, too.