The Chicago Cubs Are Run By Hypocritical Idiots
Every time I think American sports teams can't get any dumber, they get dumber.
Last month the Philadelphia Flyers took down the statue of a woman who raised hundreds of millions of dollars to fight the Nazis because of a satirical song she sang in the 1930's and now the Chicago Cubs are banning a fan for flashing the okay hand gesture during a live broadcast.
Really, I swear to God, this happened.
It all started on May 7th when Chicago Cubs sideline reporter Doug Glanville gave a report and a fan behind him, whose face we can't see, flashed the peace sign and then followed it up with an okay sign.
Here's a photo of that "incident."
We don't know exactly what the motivations of the fan were here -- so far he hasn't been identified publicly -- so it could be he wanted to play the make you look at the circle game -- which is accompanied by a shoulder punch when you look -- if you don't know what this is, ask any man between the ages of 12 and 60 and he's probably familiar with it -- or it's also possible this fan was mocking the media via an Internet meme that has gone viral over the past couple of years.
It's also possible that he had friends at home and he was just, you know, letting them know that his seats were a-okay.
The point is we don't know for sure, but what we do know for sure is the okay hand gesture, and this is significant, ISN'T RACIST AT ALL, it's an internet meme designed to mock false accusations of racism.
The idea that the okay sign -- which is used by people all over the world to signify that things are okay, celebrate three point shots, and also make you look if it's flashed below the waist -- is a symbol of white supremacists grew out of the dark corners of the Internet as a prank.
The prank has now become so successful that mainstream media organizations like MSNBC have now bought into the idea that the okay sign is a white supremacy sign and are, and I can't believe this is real life, NOW BLURRING THE OKAY SIGN IN THEIR REPORTING.
This is the exact point the Internet pranksters was making -- the demand for racism in Donald Trump's America has so vastly exceeded instances of actual racism in this country, that now everything is racist, including one of the most popular hand signs in the world. Now is it possible that racists use the okay sign? Sure. Just like racists drive cars and buy milk at the grocery store. But the gesture itself is not, and never has been, a sign of white supremacy.
It's just, you know, a hand gesture, like the thumb's up sign, which, guess what, is probably used by racists and non-racists alike too.
Now most of you are probably unaware of this Internet meme because most of you don't spend your life on the Internet. Which means you probably aren't familiar with the gleeful and absurd Internet pranks by the crew behind 4Chan. A couple of years ago these guys decided to mock the media's obsession with racism by taking a totally innocuous common gesture -- the okay sign -- and turning it into a symbol of white power.
That is, they were satirizing the media's obsession with calling everything racist by making something that is 100% not racist, racist as well.
If you doubt me, here is a long article from the Anti-Defamation League, which is an organization designed to combat actual hate, laying all of this out. (I'm linking the ADL here, but there are other left wing sites with similar articles. The fact that that this prank exists is well known and well sourced on the Internet. Only dumb people buy into this prank. Unfortunately dumb people feels like the majority of social media, which is how it has spread.)
I'm going to quote extensively from the ADL article because it's helpful to demonstrate how dumb the Cubs were and how dumb many mainstream media are being with this story as well: