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Tuesday 17 december 2019

Hate sign or silly game? Military academies probe hand signs

Continued from Front came an internet meme
in a online game of “got-
Others called it the “got- cha.”
cha” or “circle game” But the Anti-Defamation
popular with children, League said the gesture,
where someone flashes an with the thumb and fore-
upside-down OK sign be- finger touched in a circle
low his waist and punches and the other fingers out-
in the shoulder anyone stretched, has also been
who looks at it. appropriated as a signal
The circle game, around for white supremacy. That
for generations, was fea- started as a hoax perpetu-
tured in the early 2000s ated on the online mes-
sitcom “Malcolm in the sage board 4chan. The
Middle” and has made a original idea was to take
resurgence as a photo- an innocent and com-
bomb prank in sports team mon gesture and arbitrarily
photos--along the same transform it into something
line as “bunny ears” fingers. that would enrage liberals.
In more recent years, it be- The campaign was so suc-

In this Dec. 14, 2019 file photo, Navy midshipmen march onto field ahead of an NCAA college
football game between the Army and the Navy in Philadelphia.
Associated Press
cessful, the gesture came behind a broadcaster. cist leaders were making a
to be used semi-sincerely The true intentions of the concerted effort to recruit
by Neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klans- cadets and midshipmen active-duty soldiers and
men and other white na- who were recorded mak- recent combat veterans.
tionalists to signal sympa- ing the gesture while smiling A Military Times poll in 2017
thizers in public places. and laughing during Satur- found more than 30% of
Brenton Tarrant, the white day’s game are unclear. service members saw white
supremacist accused of kill- Heidi Beirich, director of nationalism as a significant
ing 50 people at two New the Southern Poverty Law threat to national security.
Zealand mosques, flashed Center’s intelligence proj- The Pentagon reaffirmed
the sign to reporters at a ect which investigates hate military policies forbidding
court hearing last March. groups and extremism, said extremist advocacy in
Mini-scandals involving the it was important that the 2017, after the Anti-Defa-
hand gesture have be- military schools investigate mation League reported a
come regular media fod- to find out the context for Marine staff sergeant was
der. In 2018, the U.S. Coast the students and future ac- the leader of the white su-
Guard suspended an of- tive-duty military members premacist group Vanguard
ficer who appeared to be using the symbol. at the “Unite the Right” rally
making the hand sign dur- “Do the investigation, find in Charlottesville, Virginia.
ing a Hurricane Florence out if it was harmless or Against the backdrop
television broadcast. A not,” she said. of concerns about hate
high school in a Chicago “If these people are influ- groups in the military, both
suburb yanked all copies of enced by white suprema- the U.S. Military Academy
its yearbook from distribu- cy, they can’t be allowed at West Point and the U.S.
tion amid concerns about to continue in the military.” Naval Academy in Annap-
a photo in which students There have been long- olis, Maryland, said they
displayed the gesture. The standing concerns about have appointed officers to
Chicago Cubs last May white supremacists in the investigate the motivations
banned a fan from games military. In 2008, an FBI re- behind the hand signals
after he flashed the symbol port found white suprema- flashed by their students.q