“Owning the libs” has never been so easy: Just raise your hand and flash the OK sign.

“The smirk that almost inevitably accompanies the ‘OK’ sign, that simplest of hand signals, is the dead giveaway in the shroud of internet-age befuddlement,” the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote last September. “Does the sign, the thumb and forefinger joined together in a circle, the remaining three fingers splayed out behind, mean ‘all’s good?’ Or does it mean ‘white power’ instead?”

Olympic gymnast Mary Lou Retton flashes the OK sign in 1984. (AP Photo)AP

The answer, of course, depends on who’s flashing the hand gesture. For decades it did indeed mean nothing more than “don’t worry, be happy.” Over the past couple of years, however, it has begun to take on a different, much darker meaning.

News outlets have been wary of putting stock in this new definition of the OK sign. They have pointed out that it’s all a joke, that some Trump supporters wave the hand signal when they’re in the mood to troll. Their goal is simply to “trigger liberals,” nothing more.

Remember a few months ago when I posted this is the sign white supremacists use for white power and liberals argued I was being ridiculous? I remember. pic.twitter.com/Nw6A0qI7Kz — Kimberley Johnson (@AuthorKimberley) March 16, 2019

The OK sign’s origin as a Trumpian embrace supposedly comes from people noticing one of President Donald Trump’s signature tics when he’s giving a speech: he raises his right hand and squeezes the thumb and forefinger together.

“This gesture signals precision and control,” Forbes magazine wrote in a 2017 article about Trump’s body language.

That tic launched a million precise hand gestures, as Trump partisans have responded to critics who insist the president’s rhetoric and policies embolden white nationalists. The Southern Poverty Law Center says the racist internet message board 4chan pushed “a deliberate hoax” that the OK sign now meant much more than OK. Soon the cartoon character Pepe the Frog giving the OK sign had become a potent Trumpian image.

White House adviser Stephen Miller has posed for the cameras making the OK sign. So has notorious right-wing troll Milo Yiannopoulos.

But the hand gesture has apparently continued to evolve, going from a mindless way to mock liberals to an actual racist identifier, used as both a secret acknowledgment to fellow white nationalists and as a first approach by white-supremacist recruiters.

In case we’re still debating if this is a symbol of white supremacy. https://t.co/hPWDXuZNYz — Soledad O'Brien (@soledadobrien) March 16, 2019

One thing we know about the world today: what we might create for a specific purpose can no longer be controlled once it’s out there on the internet. Maybe coopting the OK sign started as little more than a hyper-partisan joke, but it has clearly jumped beyond that lane. In a “purported manifesto,” New Zealand mosque massacre suspect Brenton Tarrant wrote that he considered Donald Trump “a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose.” When Tarrant made his first appearance in court over the weekend, he flashed the OK sign while handcuffed between two guards.

Journalist Soledad O’Brien posted a photo of the alleged killer making the hand signal and wrote:

“In case we’re still debating if this is a symbol of white supremacy.”

-- Douglas Perry

@douglasmperry

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