I'm gonna regret this, but okay. Couple more things on the Zina Bash hand signal.
First, to call it a "white power" sign isn't quite right. The contemporary political use of the gesture has its roots in trolling-as-identity as much as race-as-identity. It's an in-group gesture for various folks, not all of whom self-ID as white supremacist.
So the claim that Bash was making the gesture isn't exactly a claim that she's an avowed white supremacist sending a bat-signal to other avowed white supremacists. It's murkier than that.
Given that, "she's half-Jewish and half-Mexican!" isn't dispositive. As a rebuttal to claims that she was making the gesture, it's not as definitive as some folks are making out.
(Also, the relationship between Jewishness and white nationalism in Trump circles is pretty freaking weird.)
(Also also, yes of course the "OK" hand symbol existed before the subcultural appropriation we're discussing. Hush.)
So, having said all that, the next question is: Was she making a hand gesture, or was her hand just in that position randomly?
To my mind, it's not a question that lends itself to a definitive answer. If it was on purpose, it appears to have been intended as deniable. If it was by accident, you're left with the problem of proving a negative.
In the first video I saw, her hand was already in position at the start of the clip, and it looked very much possible but not slam-dunk obvious.
In this video, which I saw more recently, and which shows her putting her hand in position, the affirmative case looks a lot stronger to me.
I don't know, dude. Could be an accident, I guess. But I see folks acting like It's Definitely Not A Thing And It's Outrageous To Suggest Otherwise, and I just don't see that case having been made.
Oh, and one more thing: "She was trolling, and you fell for it!" makes no sense to me. If you're being a creep, and I say "You're being a creep," that doesn't mean you won.
If she was trolling, the people who fell for the troll are the people on the left who are insisting what she did was innocent and getting really mad at the people on the left who say the hand signal was a real thing.
If you think arguing about the possibly-innocent hand signal is bad for the left, maybe stop poking at the people who think it wasn't innocent?
