Well, that didn't take too fast. The Cubs have decided to ban, or are close to making that decision, the fan who flashed the "OK" sign behind analyst Doug Glanville during Tuesday night's game against the Marlins.
A quick break down on why this gesture has been deemed racist in recent years.
Via the Anti-Defamation league:
In 2017, the “okay” hand gesture acquired a new and different significance thanks to a hoax by members of the website 4chan to falsely promote the gesture as a hate symbol, claiming that the gesture represented the letters “wp,” for “white power.” The “okay” gesture hoax was merely the latest in a series of similar 4chan hoaxes using various innocuous symbols; in each case, the hoaxers hoped that the media and liberals would overreact by condemning a common image as white supremacist. In the case of the “okay” gesture, the hoax was so successful the symbol became a popular trolling tactic on the part of right-leaning individuals, who would often post photos to social media of themselves posing while making the “okay” gesture. Ironically, some white supremacists themselves soon also participated in such trolling tactics, lending an actual credence to those who labeled the trolling gesture as racist in nature. By 2019, at least some white supremacists seem to have abandoned the ironic or satiric intent behind the original trolling campaign and used the symbol as a sincere expression of white supremacy, such as when Australian white supremacist Brenton Tarrant flashed the symbol during a March 2019 courtroom appearance soon after his arrest for allegedly murdering 50 people in a shooting spree at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Via 670 The Score.
"We reached the conclusion that it's more likely than not that this person was using that hand signal as a racist way of interfering with everyone's enjoyment of the game," Kenney said. "That investigation has almost reached its conclusion. We'll have more to say about that in a little bit."
In the investigation, the Cubs identified the fan and determined that he was using it as a racist gesture after going through his social media pages.
So, important message here. If you're going to be racist, don't then be surprised when you get banned after showing your racism at a Cubs game on TV after making it easy to determine you're racist on social media.
You can listen to Crane Kenney's interview on 670 The Score from this morning below.
Although the Cubs haven't made an announcement, Kenney basically said they'll be banning the fan during the interview.
Here's the fan flashing the OK sign from Tuesday night's broadcast on NBC Sports Chicago.
The Cubs, as many teams in every sport, are now only using electronic tickets to get admission into Wrigley Field. That should help turn away and deny fans who are banned, including this dude, but I always find it hard to believe that teams can 100% enforce the bans.
There's just no way they can keep track of every person who comes in and even with electronic tickets, you can still get them and go in unnoticed.
So, the Cubs acted quickly and most fans will applaud this decision. And hey, even if you feel sorry for this most likely racist guy, don't worry, he'll probably go to another Cubs game anyway.
Not really sure why you'd feel sorry for him, though. Unless you know, you're OK with that OK.
