Kaepernick, Bash and the Meaning of Gestures

Today’s mission, should we decide to accept it, is to get from Zina Bash to Colin Kaepernick… without overly contorting the argument.

You recall Zina Bash. She is Brett Kavanaugh’s assistant, or law clerk. She sat behind him, over his left shoulder, during the Senate confirmation hearings. During the first day’s hearings, she was espied making a certain gesture or sign with her fingers. Thumb and forefinger were touching, forming a circle. The other three fingers were erect.

Some might say that her fingers were arrayed at random. Some might say that she was signalling her approval of Kavanaugh’s performance. After all, the sign can mean: good job.

Apparently, some people decided that it was really a secret white supremacy sign. Which tells you that these people have far too much time on their hands and are suffering from a deficiency of little gray cells.

Kevin Williamson explains:

A bunch of 4chan idjits pulled a related prank by inventing a rumor that the familiar “okay” gesture — thumb and forefinger forming a circle, the other three fingers extended, suggesting the letters o and k — had been adopted as a white-power signifier, with the three fingers forming a w and the thumb and forefinger suggesting the top part of a p. They made graphics and everything — people are suckers for a neatly presented visual aid. A few media outlets fell for the prank, which, of course, will never die, even though the white-power significance of the okay gesture has been exposed as a witless media confabulation born of a prank. During the Senate confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh, one of his law clerks was accused of making a furtive white-power gesture: “Did Zina Bash Flash a White Supremacist Sign During Kavanaugh Hearing?” Newsweek asked. The usual doofi on social media did the usual thing. Bash is an unlikely white-power thug: She is Mexican on her mother’s side and a descendent of Holocaust survivors on her father’s.

Anyway, I have my own personal history with said sign. I am surprised that the doofi of the online world do not know this. I am happy to inform them.

One day, many years ago, I was lecturing in Sao Paolo, Brazil. In the course of a question and answer session I made the OK sign, which means, good job, and which used to be called the three-ring sign and which used to be the tag line for Ballantine Beer.

During a break from the questioning a friend took me aside to explain that in Brazil, that specific sign has a different meaning. It means, roughly speaking: Up yours! As such it is grossly offensive. I understood that I should not make that gesture in Brazil, lest I offend everyone in the assembled audience.

The lesson: a sign means what it means according to social codes. It does not take on a different meaning because you intend for it to mean something else.

I have employed the same reasoning in the matter of Colin Kaepernick. Hopefully, it is worth repeating.  After all, we have often been regaled with the heartfelt excuse that Kaepernick’s protest was not unpatriotic. After all, you have a right to express your hatred for America. It's protected speech. But, it is not a sign of patriotism. We ought to be able to make the most elementary distinction.

Whatever Kaepernick meant, other NFL players have declared that when they took a knee during the National Anthem, they meant no offense. They were protesting police brutality.

And yet, the gesture does not gain its meaning from your intention. It functions within a social code. There it signifies a repudiation of the American nation, a sense of not wanting to belong. It shows an absence of patriotism. If the players did not want it to mean that, they should have stopped making the gesture.

As happened to me, the first time you err, people will forgive you your ignorance. If, after having learned what the world thinks of your gesture, you persist… you are affirming your lack of patriotism. The players have a constitutional right to repudiate the nation. They are exercising that right. And yet, if I had continued to make the offending hand gesture in Sao Paolo, no one would have thought that I was expressing a right to speak freely. They would have understood that I was deliberately offending them.

As for Kaepernick’s patriotism, I would note that people like former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmajinedad came out in support of Nike’s effort to lionize Kaepernick. One of the world’s great America haters supports Nike, you should take notice. And, of course, the embittered and increasingly irrational John Brennan, formerly director of the CIA, has also voiced his support for Nike. Keep in mind that Brennan, whose religious affiliation is less than clear, refused to put his hand on the Bible when he was sworn in at CIA.

Kaepernick’s gesture was elicited by his Muslim girlfriend and was intended as an attack on America. He might not have known it. His fellow NFLers might not have known it. If so, they were all duped. The gesture means what it means.