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“Every time there’s a public discussion like this, white supremacists who use this symbol for nefarious purposes are celebrating the fact that people are talking about them.” “This was started as a way to troll the media, to think something as simple as an OK symbol is representative of hate,” Segal said. Segal said even if the motivations turn out to be innocent, the public discussion generated is a victory for white supremacists.

Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, said people should let the investigation run its course and not jump to conclusions about the motivations behind the students’ gestures. “I think the Army’s done a lot since the 1990s when I came in to rid our ranks of white supremacists.” “Honestly, it looks to me like they’re playing the game we used to call the circle game,” Sink said Monday. James Sink, professor of military science at Arizona State University and a 2000 graduate of West Point, said it may turn out the actions were innocent, if ill-advised. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, said they have appointed officers to investigate the motivations behind the hand signals flashed by their students. Military Academy at West Point and the U.S. The Pentagon reaffirmed military policies forbidding extremist advocacy in 2017, after the Anti-Defamation League reported a Marine staff sergeant was the leader of the white supremacist group Vanguard at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.Īgainst the backdrop of concerns about hate groups in the military, both the U.S. A Military Times poll in 2017 found more than 30% of service members saw white nationalism as a significant threat to national security. In 2008, an FBI report found white supremacist leaders were making a concerted effort to recruit active-duty soldiers and recent combat veterans. There have been longstanding concerns about white supremacists in the military. “If these people are influenced by white supremacy, they can’t be allowed to continue in the military.” “Do the investigation, find out if it was harmless or not,” she said.

Heidi Beirich, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s intelligence project which investigates hate groups and extremism, said it was important that the military schools investigate to find out the context for the students and future active-duty military members using the symbol.

The true intentions of the cadets and midshipmen who were recorded making the gesture while smiling and laughing during Saturday’s game are unclear. The Chicago Cubs last May banned a fan from games after he flashed the symbol behind a broadcaster. A high school in a Chicago suburb yanked all copies of its yearbook from distribution amid concerns about a photo in which students displayed the gesture. Coast Guard suspended an officer who appeared to be making the hand sign during a Hurricane Florence television broadcast. Mini-scandals involving the hand gesture have become regular media fodder. The campaign was so successful, the gesture came to be used semi-sincerely by Neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klansmen and other white nationalists to signal sympathizers in public places.īrenton Tarrant, the white supremacist accused of killing 50 people at two New Zealand mosques, flashed the sign to reporters at a court hearing last March. The original idea was to take an innocent and common gesture and arbitrarily transform it into something that would enrage liberals. That started as a hoax perpetuated on the online message board 4chan. In more recent years, it became an internet meme in a online game of “gotcha.”īut the Anti-Defamation League said the gesture, with the thumb and forefinger touched in a circle and the other fingers outstretched, has also been appropriated as a signal for white supremacy. The circle game, around for generations, was featured in the early 2000s sitcom “Malcolm in the Middle” and has made a resurgence as a photobomb prank in sports team photos-along the same line as “bunny ears” fingers.