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'OK' Hand Symbol Added to Hate Database


FILE - Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 2, 2017.
FILE - Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 2, 2017.

The universal hand gesture that signifies everything is OK is now a hate symbol used by white supremacists and other far-right extremists.

The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights group, added the gesture made by touching the forefinger to the thumb with three other fingers extended to its online "Hate on Display" database.

The OK symbol joins the bowl haircut sported by mass murderer Dylann Roof, the "Moon Man" meme, a burning cross, Ku Klux Klan robes and the Nazi swastika in the database that was launched in 2000.

"Even as extremists continue to use symbols that may be years or decades old, they regularly create new symbols, memes and slogans to express their hateful sentiments,'' ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement.

The ADL explains that the OK symbol has been co-opted by white supremacists who use it to make the letter shapes for "W" and "P," which stand for "white power."

Far-right extremists have begun using a silhouette of the bowl haircut worn by Roof, who killed nine black churchgoers at the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.

The "Moon Man'' meme is an anthropomorphic moon wearing sunglasses that has been transformed to spread racist rap songs.

"We pay special attention to those symbols that exhibit staying power, as well as those that move from online usage into the real world," Mark Pitcavage, senior fellow in ADL's Center on Extremism, told CNN.

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