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I don't know anything about this guy, so I'm not defending him.
That said, I also had no idea the OK signal was taken over by white supremacists. I knew it could be used to make people look and then you get to punch them in the arm, which is how we used the OK signal all the time in High School. For all we know, he could have been playing a prank on his buddies that he got them all to look at his hand and gets to punch them all. Or maybe he's a racist piece of trash.
First time I heard that the ok symbol was this bad. Granted, I'm not in the USA. That's crazy I thought it was just a meme like pepe the frog. I flash my wife the ok symbol every night after dinner.
It started as a joke on 4 Chan in 2017 get people to think the ok sign was used by white supremacists. The media naturally fell for it/ran with it as it creates a narrative of secret sleeper clan members waiting to strike. Mostly morons believed it to be true which included white supremists groups who now have adopted it.
I think a lot of this is about context too. I don’t think anyone would bat an eye if you used the ok symbol in that context. I still use it pretty regularly, but I’m also not a white dude or using it for no reason in photos and only to my white friends. They probably had some other problematic instances and this was the final straw to kick this guy out.
Genuine question, not really related to this case: is the OK signal usually associated with racism in the US? My friends and I just use it to sign okay, I've literally never heard of this other meaning.
It wasn't always, but 4chan trolls tried to make media outlets believe that it was a "white power" symbol (with the three fingers held up representing a "W" and the thumb-forefinger circle + wrist/arm representing a "P"). They succeeded a little too well, and so not only did media outlets report on it, but racist groups saw that reporting and went "dang, Cletus, we should start doin' that!"
So what started as a stupid joke has actually manifested itself.
This is the very first time I've heard of this. Just asked my wife who definitely pays more attention to current events and politics than I do and I just taught her something new. We're in America.