Who is ready for the sequel to the West Point “white power” panic of 2019?
CBS News sure is.
“D.C. Fire Department recruits might be making ‘white power’ hand gesture in photo,” the network reported early Thursday morning.
D.C. Fire Department recruits might be making “white power” hand gesture in photo https://t.co/cSYPzwmUZ1 pic.twitter.com/3iw52wD9iB
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 16, 2020
The report’s opening line reads, “A photo of fire department recruits possibly using a racist hand gesture is being investigated by District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Services.”
The photo in question, which surfaced first on Facebook, shows nothing of the sort. It shows the recruits clearly playing the “circle game,” an old schoolyard gimmick where a person makes a circle with his thumb and index finger and then punches whomever he tricks into looking at it.
But you try telling that to the geniuses at CBS, who clearly believe it is possible that firefighters in the nation’s capital coyly flashed white supremacy symbols while posing for a group photo.
The report continues:
WUSA explains the gesture in the photo might be seen as “WP,” for “white power,” since extending three fingers is a possible “W” and the “circle” coming off an arm is a possible “P” — “WP.”
Are we really doing this again? Did CBS learn nothing from the West Point fiasco? It sure seems that way.
The “OK” symbol that members of the press and activist groups attribute to white supremacists stems from a long-running internet joke, as I wrote in December back when journalists and news commentators falsely accused U.S. Military Academy cadets of flashing “white power” symbols at an Army-Navy football game.
Online trolls thought it would be funny to start a hoax, tricking the news media into believing a ubiquitous hand gesture was part of a secret code used by white supremacists. The “OK” gesture then became an inside joke among actual white supremacists, which prompted none-too-bright activist groups and none-too-bright journalists to declare the innocuous symbol off-limits for everyone. To treat the “OK” gesture as a genuine symbol of white supremacy is to play the willing sap to an internet prank.
Further, the “OK” hand gesture attributed to white supremacists is right-side up (fingers pointing upwards). The hand gestures made by both the firefighter recruits and the West Point cadets show hands pointing downward. That is because they are playing the “circle game,” not pledging their allegiance to white supremacy, you unsalvageable idiots. The West Point cadets, by the way, were cleared of any wrongdoing following an internal investigation.
Now, for the best part of the CBS report smearing the firefighters:
In other words, with full knowledge of the last media screw up, CBS News willfully repeated it. And no, that’s not the definition of insanity, only of stupidity.
