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Doing A Nazi Salute Doesn’t Make You A Nazi, It Makes You An Asshole
Those who fail to learn from history are most likely to defend it.
June 3rd, 2020. On his drive home from a hard day’s work, Emmanuel Cafferty sticks his hand out of his truck window and accidentally ruins his life.
While innocently cracking his knuckles, Cafferty momentarily made a gesture that looked like an OK hand sign. But unfortunately for him, the OK sign looks vaguely similar to a recently designated white power sign. And even more unfortunately, a passing driver took a photo of it and posted it on social media.
Cafferty was fired a few days later.
April 27th, 2021. Kelly Donohue celebrates winning his third consecutive Jeopardy! championship and unintentionally ruins his life.
Donohue decided to mark his “three-peat” by placing three fingers on his lapel, but this, too, looked kinda-sorta like the OK symbol, so more than 560 former Jeopardy! winners sign an open letter denouncing him as a racist. Donohue spent the next several months being harassed and demonised as a white supremacist.
July 20th, 2023. Reade Whitney, a trainer for Major League Soccer team DC United, holds up an OK sign in a staff photo and inadvertently…well, you get the idea by now.
