« Andrew Malcolm: The latest to get out | For Tessa Majors, ever newer and more creative ways of blaming the victim »
December 16, 2019

Liberals accuse Army, Navy cadets of flashing 'racist' hand signs

By Trevor Thomas

Of all the ridiculous, baseless charges of racism taken seriously by people who ought to know better, the claim that cadets used a racist hand gesture at the Army-Navy Game last weekend is among the worst, because it slimes the best among us, who are part of the least racist institution in the United States (and the world).

I started teaching in the early 1990s.  This is my 27th year of teaching high school mathematics.  I've taught at two public schools, both of which have a large majority of students who are Hispanic or black (the population of white students at both are well under 25%).  The vast majority of students at both schools qualified for free or reduced lunches.

I've taught at one private military academy (annual tuition around $30K).  At this school, there was a large population of international students — around 25% — who hailed from over two dozen foreign countries.  One thing in common over all my quarter-century-plus of teaching high school students, whether the twentieth century or the twenty-first century, whether rich, middle-class, or poor, whether American or foreign, and whether black, white, or brown, teenage boys love playing the silly "Circle Game."

In case you're unfamiliar, in this game, a person makes a circle with his thumb and forefinger, exactly as if you're making the "okay" sign, except this finger circle is usually held low, near one's waist, or off to the side, or wherever is needed.  The circle-maker then attempts to get their target, usually a friend, to look at the finger circle.  If one looks, then one gets punched in the arm.

Don't just take my word for it.  According to KnowYourMeme.com:

The Circle Game is a game of peripheral vision, trickery and motor skills. The game starts out when the Offensive Player creates a circle with their thumb and forefinger somewhere below his waist. The goal is to trick another person into looking at his hand. If the victim looks at the hand, he has lost the game, and is subsequently hit on the bicep with a closed fist, by the offensive player. Online, people have begun hiding hands making the circle symbols in various images to trick people into finding it.

According to Vice, the Circle Game was invented by Ohio resident Matt Nelson in the early 1980s. Nelson claims to have devised the game while in elementary school as a way to punch his friends.

The game was popularized on November 15th, 2000 in the fourth episode of the television sitcom Malcom in the Middle's second season. In the episode, characters play the Circle Game, introducing to the show's millions of viewers.

As a teacher, I've even had students play the game with me.  They would say something silly — "your shoe is untied" — to try to get me to look down, and they would place their finger-circle in my line of sight. If I fell for it, they wouldn't try to punch me, but they would playfully deride me.  I know, it's dumb as dirt, but it's a harmless, silly game — except to those corrupted by a liberal worldview.

If you need proof that modern liberalism corrupts virtually everything it touches, consider the silly game described above and the Army-Navy football game played over this past weekend.  As reported by even USA Today, cadets who were merely playing this silly game are being accused of making the "White Power hand symbol during a pregame broadcast of the Army-Navy game."

Watch a video of the so-called "disgusting act":

Note the young cadet with the finger circle on his shoulder (made by the gloved hand) is trying hard not to look and not to laugh.  I have the same feeling as I investigate for this piece and as I encounter the liberal narratives surrounding this silly, stupid saga.  The libtard — yes, liberalism retards one's thinking — outcry was so loud that, according to The Wall Street Journal, West Point and Annapolis officials are "investigating" the "possible 'White Power' hand sign."

Someone with some sense and the authority to do so should instruct both academies to tell those offended to rethink their worldview and find something better to do with their time.  Our service academies certainly have better things to focus on!

Countering the evil attempts by Twitter leftists to smear these cadets, many right-minded Twitter users rightly mocked the leftist narrative of this incident:

Also, Kurt Schlichter rightly went on the warpath, declaring "This b------- where liberals attempt to define innocuous gestures as hate crimes is simply their way of asserting power by causing others to take their lies seriously." Mr. Schlichter is exactly right, and his conclusion here is exactly why the academies at West Point and Annapolis should do nothing but ignore the outcries of liberals here.

Of course, as many of us here at American Thinker have spent years revealing, liberalism is littered with lies. As we learned in the case with the Covington Catholic students, the safest bet in all of these situations is to assume the left is lying, or at least, is grossly deceived.

Trevor Grant Thomas At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason. www.trevorgrantthomas.com Trevor is the author of the The Miracle and Magnificence of America

tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Photo credit: Twitter video screen grab.

If you experience technical problems, please write to helpdesk@americanthinker.com