Jon Del Arroz Threatens to Sue Worldcon 76

Jon Del Arroz, who last month was banned from attending this year’s Worldcon in San Jose, has created a GoFundMe titled “Make WorldCon Great Again” which explains:

… In January 2018, WorldCon, the premier science fiction writers convention, openly discriminated against libertarians and conservatives in the field by banning Jon Del Arroz, a popular Hispanic science fiction writer, in an unprecedented move because he is outspoken political figure. Their claim was that Del Arroz “intended to violate their code of conduct.”

Del Arroz is asking donors for $10,000 to fund a lawsuit in retaliation:

Pursuing his rights on his behalf and for others who may be discriminated against on similar grounds will be expensive. Filing the lawsuit will cost around $1,000 and if there are depositions, motions, or experts, it could cost more than $10,000. It’s a lot of money to be able to exercise rights to speak without fear of illegal retaliation and discrimination and to associate with other members of the science fiction community and writing peers, but it needs to be done so others in the future can speak safely.

Please help Jon Del Arroz in his fight for civil rights for libertarian-conservatives everywhere in these troubling times. As a thanks, everyone who donates will receive a free novella e-book as a thank you.

Curiously, although the GoFundMe was created a week ago, as of this moment it still has yet to receive its first donation.

In January, Worldcon 76 advised its staff to have no further discussion on Jon Del Arroz because attorneys were getting involved.

Now Del Arroz has started publicizing his lawsuit threat by contacting writers, even (or perhaps especially) those that have criticized his past record of harassment. A. Merc Rustad received a copy and posted this reaction:

208 thoughts on “Jon Del Arroz Threatens to Sue Worldcon 76

  1. MODERATOR’S WARNING: As I have said before, I am not hosting a debate about JDA’s ethnicity or race. Such comments are being removed.

  2. Contrarius: But the con itself is not a business establishment — it has no fixed address, and it is not engaged in making a profit or selling a product.

    Worldcon 76 is being run by a California nonprofit corporation. That does not render it immune from antidiscrimination laws. The question remains whether the Unruh Act is being properly construed by JDA’s lawyer.

  3. At this point we’re just going to have to wait and see what happens next. I think it unlikely that discovery would support his claims, but until the case progresses we can’t know how the judge will interpret any of it.

  4. @Contrarius: in addition to @OGH’s point, I note that an admissions office is hardly a precedent; by definition it is a workplace, not something that anybody can enter for a modest amount of money. I wouldn’t expect a judge to think well of an SFSFC attorney who presented this as analogous. wrt the orchid club, I don’t see your point; if it doesn’t have any rules up front, what grounds would it have for rejecting a random jerk? (A local club does have reject-for-cause rules, probably because it formed out of the ashes of an earlier group — but those apply only to voting members, not to subscribing members, let alone convention members.) A club is also a poor analogy, even if it’s the same sort of monster as Mass Horticultural (whose purposes include putting on a monster show); JdA can claim he wants to come to the party, not join SFSFC (which W76 membership doesn’t get one anyway). I know fandom makes a big thing of convention “membership” as opposed to show “admission”; however, the extent to which that is a functional distinction, as opposed to an ideal (like Burning Man’s nobody-is-a-spectator vibe), or guidance for what is scheduled at the convention, could certainly be argued by someone more reasonable than JdA’s counsel.

    Note that none of this counters the fact that JdA was bounced because he made specific threats against the convention’s rules. (It would be helpful if there were a precedent for deciding in the convention’s favor in this case, and not just in a case of someone threatening a tort as recognized in California law, but I’m not betting there is.) These arguments are peripherals, but using a quick reading to assuming that they will be decided a particular way does not strike me as reliable.

  5. @NickPheas —

    The one problem they face when trying to claim a discrimination case against his Hispanic ancestry is that members of the convention team are Hispanic and also Latino. There is the very public support of #TheMexicanxInitiative and that several guests and key speakers/panelist are also of Hispanic ancestry.

    This alone would cause any legal case to be dismissed.

  6. Chip Hitchcock: Note that none of this counters the fact that JdA was bounced because he made specific threats against the convention’s rules.

    This is a canard which a bunch of people keep repeating because a member of Worldcon 76 was foolish enough to try to publicly provide a reason for JDA’s banning without painting a target on any specific person’s back — and I wish that everyone would stop doing so, because of course JDA’s allies keep claiming this as well.

    JDA’s threat to enter the SFWA members’ suite at Worldcon 76 and video their private gathering was just one of numerous reasons for his banning. He was banned after nearly a year of continuous bullying and harassing behavior against writers and members of fandom. And Worldcon no doubt has, at this point, a box — or several — full of screenshots and e-mail exchanges to support those claims.

    Discussions of whether Worldcon is a commercial establishment are moot. The Unruh Act does not apply, because “harasser” is not a protected class.

  7. @Chip Hitchcock, thanks for your comments. I hadn’t thought it was necessary to elaborate on why Worldcon 76 obviously isn’t a ‘public accommodation’ (nor ‘place of amusement’) within the meaning of the Unruh Civil Rights Act. The meaning of that phrase has been developed by California’s Supreme Court over time via caselaw, so to see the authoritative criteria, you’ll need to consult those cases’ opinions. I’ve just skim-read these leading cases, and a few of my comments follow:

    Curran v. Mount Diablo Council of the Boy Scouts, 17 Cal.4th 670, 696 (1998)
    O’Connor v. Village Green Owners Ass’n, 33 Cal.3d 790, 795 (1983)
    Isbister v. Boys’ Club of Santa Cruz, 40 Cal.3d 72, 76 (1985)

    The high test’s critical test developed over those cases is that covered institutions must have ‘businesslike attributes’, and/or be ‘places of public accommodation or amusement’, and be sufficiently open to the public.

    Quoting the O’Connor opinion:

    The word “business” embraces everything about which one can be employed, and it is often synonymous with “calling, occupation, or trade, engaged in for the purpose of making a livelihood or gain.” The word ‘establishment,’ as broadly defined, includes not only a fixed location, such as the ‘place where one is permanently fixed for residence or business,’ but also a permanent ‘commercial force or organization’ or ‘a permanent settled position (as in life or business).’

    Contrary to the association’s attempt to characterize itself as but an organization that “mows lawns” for owners, the association in reality has a far broader and more businesslike purpose. The association, through a board of directors, is charged with employing a professional property management firm, with obtaining insurance for the benefit of all owners and with maintaining and repairing all common areas and facilities of the 629-unit project. It is also charged with establishing and collecting assessments from all owners to pay for its undertakings and with adopting and enforcing rules and regulations for the common good. In brief, the association performs all the customary business functions which in the traditional landlord-tenant relationship rest on the landlord’s shoulders.

    The O’Connor case, like the Marina Point one mentioned upthread, revolved around housing that prohibited children, and the holding was similar.

    In the Curran decision, the high court held that Mount Diablo Council of the Boy Scouts was not a public accommodation in part because it “meets regularly in small groups (often in private homes)” to practice and study moral and ethical principles advanced by the BSA. The court observed that BSA does not allow nonmembers access to its ‘core functions’, and keeps its sales and marketing activities separate from these core functions, thus falling outside the realm of ‘business establishments’.

    In Isbister, the court held that it was necessary to examine the membership policies of an organization (such as the Boys’ Club in question) to determine whether each was the equivalent of a “place of public accommodation or amusement. The club holding itself open to a large portion of the public and offered admission to a recreational facility (in contrast to the BSA troupe in Curran) was ruled to show that it operated a ‘place of amusement’. The court further explained that the club is ‘classically public’ in its operation because it opens its recreational doors to the entire youthful population of Santa Cruz, with the sole condition that its users be male. Also persuasive was that the club employs a substantial paid staff and cares for an extensive public plant used for public purposes.

    In Warfield, a golf and country club was ruled to be a ‘place of amusement’, bringing it under the Unruh Act. The court ruled that the club is ‘simply a business’, not the private club it asserted itself to be, operated for profit with none of the attributes of self-government and membership-ownership traditionally associated with private clubs. The court pointed to a number of clearly business activities the club conducts, some open to non-members.

    All of these cases stress that the Unruh Act bars ‘arbitrary discrimination’ against covered classes. Leaving aside the obvious-to-me point that ‘notorious Internet troll and sh*tkicker’ just not a ‘political affiliation’ at all, Mr. del Arroz’s banning was IMO the furthest thing from arbitrary, as can be amply documented if this goes to trial.

    I hope that helps, though it’s best to read the actual court opinions to see the patterns.

  8. @Chip —

    What Rick Moen said. Worldcon is not a public accommodation: amongst other things, only members are allowed into the con (not the general public), and only members can attend the membership meetings and affect the governance of the club.

    “wrt the orchid club, I don’t see your point; if it doesn’t have any rules up front, what grounds would it have for rejecting a random jerk? (A local club does have reject-for-cause rules, probably because it formed out of the ashes of an earlier group — but those apply only to voting members, not to subscribing members, let alone convention members.)”

    Any private club has the right to reject any prospective member for any reason it likes; it doesn’t NEED specific rules. Just as SFSFC specifically states that it can reject anyone at any time, so can any other club.

    “I know fandom makes a big thing of convention “membership” as opposed to show “admission”; however, the extent to which that is a functional distinction, as opposed to an ideal (like Burning Man’s nobody-is-a-spectator vibe), or guidance for what is scheduled at the convention, could certainly be argued by someone more reasonable than JdA’s counsel.”

    There’s a big difference, in part because “show admission” does not include the ability to attend the business meetings of the organization putting on the show nor voting on the rules under which that organization operates nor its awards, all of which Worldcon attending members do.

    “Note that none of this counters the fact that JdA was bounced because he made specific threats against the convention’s rules.”

    Again — what Rick said.

    No, he was emphatically NOT bounced only because of a specific threat. At no point was a specific statement or threat of his cited by Worldcon in their decision to boot him.

    From the Worldcon Facebook page: “We have taken this step because he has made it clear that he fully intends to break our code of conduct. We take that seriously. Worldcon 76 strives to be an inclusive place in fandom, as difficult as that can be, and racist and bullying behavior is not acceptable at our Worldcon.”

    From the letter that Worldcon sent to Jon (which Jon himself made public): “On your personal blog you have made it clear that you are both expecting and planning on engendering a hostile environment which we do not allow.”

    IOW, he was banned for a general pattern of behavior, not one specific statement.

    And again, a private club has a right to toss any member for any reason.

  9. @me —

    Again — what Rick said.

    Woops. That was actually what **JJ** said, not Rick. My apologies!

  10. @Contrarius
    Worldcon is not a public accommodation: amongst other things, only members are allowed into the con (not the general public), and only members can attend the membership meetings and affect the governance of the club.

    You can’t define Worldcon as a private club because attendees get to attend the business meeting, as if attending a business meeting was somehow only specific to members of a private club. Anyone (even people who are part of the “general public”) with $230 can attend Worldcon, and the WC constitution says that any attending “member” can attend the business meeting. Paid admission isn’t enough of a discriminating factor to be the kind of limit on membership that the definitions of private clubs require.

    You wouldn’t say that everyone who attends the Bonaroo festival was a member of a private club. I don’t see how attending Worldcon is functionally any different. You pay admission, you attend, you go home.

  11. @Bill —

    “You can’t define Worldcon as a private club because attendees get to attend the business meeting, as if attending a business meeting was somehow only specific to members of a private club”

    Only members are allowed into the convention, so no, the general public can not attend — and the general public also can’t vote.

    “ Anyone (even people who are part of the “general public”) with $230 can attend Worldcon”

    If they pay their $230, they are no longer members of the general public. That’s how clubs work.

    “Paid admission isn’t enough of a discriminating factor to be the kind of limit on membership that the definitions of private clubs require.”

    Says who? Where?

    In fact, this is pretty common in clubs — you pay your dues and hey presto, you’re a member.

    “You wouldn’t say that everyone who attends the Bonaroo festival was a member of a private club”

    Again — Bonaroo attendees don’t get to vote on the governance of the Bonaroo organization. And Bonaroo’s purpose is to make a profit. And I suppose that Bonaroo does have some sort of attendance limit, but at many thousand it isn’t a very meaningful one.

    I’m typing on my phone right now, but I’ve got a list of characteristics used in legal considerartions about clubs on my laptop. I’ll post em later when I have access to it.

  12. You wouldn’t say that everyone who attends the Bonaroo festival was a member of a private club. I don’t see how attending Worldcon is functionally any different. You pay admission, you attend, you go home.

    If you attend the Bonaroo festival, can you take part in Bonaroo business meetings? Vote on constitutional changes?

    You dismiss it at the start of your comment, but it’s a clear and functional difference.

  13. I suspect Worldcon’s going to focus on proving they didn’t discriminate and had other reasons for banning him from attending, instead of trying to prove they had a right to discriminate. Should be a lot easier, since they did in fact have other reasons, and less likely to make them look like jerks to a casual observer. Defending discrimination isn’t a good look even if that discrimination doesn’t actually exist.

  14. Meredith: I suspect Worldcon’s going to focus on proving they didn’t discriminate and had other reasons for banning him from attending, instead of trying to prove they had a right to discriminate.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if their defense is twofold:
    1) JDA was banned for harassing behavior, and “harasser” is not a protected class;
    2) Worldcon, as the private membership meeting of a club, is not subject to the Unruh Act.

    The latter would not be “proving that they have a right to discriminate”, but to set a precedent which preserves the autonomy of Worldcons under the law to administer their club and their meetings as they see fit.

  15. @JJ:

    I wouldn’t be surprised if their defence is twofold:

    I would actually expect it — assuming this chump actually files and goes to trial, which is quite unclear[1] — to be multifold. In civil litigation, the other side typically has a list of hurdles (required ‘elements’ of a tort) that must all be cleared to the satisfaction of a judge or jury, so the obvious counterstrategy is to contest all points you can. Consider the letter’s big talk about defamation, for example. I long ago posted an outline of the required legal elements plaintiff must prove in a defamation action. (It’s not quite comprehensive: Some day I will perhaps flesh it out some more.) In this hypothetical case, obvious points of challenge by defendant include:

    1. Not a factual claim. The ban notice’s wording about ‘racist and bullying behavior is not acceptable at our Worldcon’ does not actually state that del Arroz committed such behaviour, merely that such behaviour is unwelcome.

    2. Even if it did, expressions of opinion enjoy absolute privilege against charges of defamation. ‘Racism’ and ‘bullying’ are inherently matters of personal perception and opinion, not factual claims.

    3. Lack of harm (actual damages), because plaintiff can be shown to already have had such a poor reputation that the statements did not materially injure his reputation, let alone cause provable real monetary loss like costing him his job.

    4. Truth enjoys absolute privilege against charges of defamation. If defendant can show that all allegedly defamatory factual statements it and its agents made were factually accurate, then there is no defamation.

    5. California is probably one of the states where a factual statement cannot be held to be defamation unless the speaker was negligent in checking his/her facts. If he/she meets an implied standard of reasonable care and was mistaken, then he/she would be not liable. (I’d have to check this; it’s been many decades since I last looked into defamation elements.)

    6. Failure to prove effect. Plaintiff must show that not only did plaintiff make unprivileged defamatory claims of fact, but also that third parties believed those claims resulting in provable actual damages being suffered by defendant.

    7. Identification. (This is one of the elements my outline doesn’t yet discuss.) Plaintiff must prove that any allegedly defamatory statements were actually made by defendant or by persons serving defendant in a valid agency relationship. (You cannot in general sue X for defamation over statements made by Y.)

    Along the same lines, I concur with your listing of a two-prong defence against a hypothetical Unruh Civil Rights Act charge. And frankly, I think the first of those would be amply convincing. ‘Notorious and vexatious Internet troll’ is not a political affiliation.

    And yes, I have spent too much time around lawyers. Clever of you to notice. ;->

    [1] At this point, someone has merely underwritten the cost of Bradley writing a somewhat bullshit-enabled threat letter, not a lawsuit. (I mention this because I notice that people on the Internet have a bad habit of confusing threat letters with actual litigation.) In other words, del Arroz’s investment in actual litigation so far has risen to just barely above the cost of postage, and is in the familiar ‘talking big and blowing smoke’ phase.

  16. A few thoughts. But please note, I Am Not A Lawyer.

    The letter from the lawyer appears to make lots of allegations, but without providing any specifics, details, quotes, or attribution other than allegations. It doesn’t seem to be a “complaint” – more a vague threat, blustering with some added scary-looking legal terminology.

    Regarding business-vs-club – it turns out that in order to join Worldcon, you do not only need pay a certain amount of money, you also need to agree to certain terms and conditions:

    Terms and Conditions
    By Registering for the 76th World Science Fiction Convention, or by upgrading your pre-supporting membership to an attending or supporting membership in the 76th World Science Fiction Convention you are agreeing to abide by the terms, conditions, and Code of Conduct of the convention. Failure to do so may result in suspension or revocation of your membership.
    The Code of Conduct may be viewed on our website via this link.

    [ ] You agree to the terms and conditions*

    where the person wishing to register for membership needs to check the checkbox to indicate agreeing to those terms and conditions, or they will not be able to continue with registration.

    That extra hurdle – having to agree to follow the club’s rules, terms & conditions, etc – is a big and separate hurdle from just paying to attend an event put on by a business, such as going to the cinema. It also forms an agreement, a contract, to which the joining member has to explicitly agree, and by which they are then bound.

    It’s a difference that is also important for reasons of things like insurance. For example, I’m a member of a club for a particular recreational activity, which carries certain risks, and which requires certain equipment, of which the club owns some. The club carries insurance, for both the equipment, members who use the equipment, and third parties that might be affected if something foes wrong. Some of the club’s income is through allowing people to try some of the activities – for which they have to not just pay for the actual activity, but also join he club for a temporary membership, which includes agreeing to follow the club’s rules, etc, and which also allows the club’s insurance for its members to cover these people while they try to activity in question, and use the club’s equipment and facilities.

    While anyone, any member-of-the-public, can join the club, it is only once they have joined the club and thus are members of the club that they are allowed to access the club’s facilities etc. The fact there is no restriction on their joining the club doesn’t mean that they don’t have to join the club in order to get that access. and that includes not just any membership fee, but also agreeing to follow the club’s rules.

  17. @Christian Brunschen:

    The letter from the lawyer appears to make lots of allegations, but without providing any specifics, details, quotes, or attribution other than allegations. It doesn’t seem to be a “complaint” – more a vague threat, blustering with some added scary-looking legal terminology.

    That tactical vagueness is actually routine in legal threat / cease-and-desist / etc. letters, as you will observe if you read examples at, say, Lumen Database at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. And the vagueness is there for a very good reason: Author doesn’t want the target to easily find weaknesses and humbuggery in the potential case. To the contrary, the usual purpose of a threat letter is quite simply to motivate the target to capitulate without raising opposition, saving plaintiff the trouble, expense, and potentially disastrous defeat & cost blowback of prosecuting and possibly losing a case. (The cheapest way to win a lawsuit is to motivate the other side to concede in advance.)

    An actual court complaint filing needs to be specific. A threat letter doesn’t, and is typically crafted carefully to not be.

    Of course, for every threat letter that proceeds to a lawsuit filing, there are 99 where plaintiff takes no further action, never actually intending to sue but just seeing if he/she can get a quick capitulation and/or PR advantage from the other side. It’s important to realise that there’s little downside to making toothless and even mildly hilarious legal threats. The lawyer isn’t going to suffer embarrassment. He or she is getting paid by the hour, and a bullshit threat that turns out not to work is nonetheless easily worth trying, on a nothing ventured nothing gained basis.

    (For quite a few years, I’ve dealt with a trustee’s lawyer in an estates and trusts matter, and received numerous letters that were outrageously distortive and insulted my intelligence. But eventually I realised that having absolutely no shame is a business advantage for lawyers, and should be expected.)

  18. @Rick I’m not sure that vague letters are sent for tactical reasons, it seems more common with poor cases or poor lawyers.

    “…vagueness in legal threats is the hallmark of meritless thuggery“ -Popehat

    (He also sometimes goes with “feckless thuggery” to mix things up)

  19. @Rick Moen,

    I’m obviously just guessing, but one reason why a letter may be written to be vague and threatening might also be simply because that is a lot easier than actually putting in effort to put together an actual complaint that makes actual claims rather than vague allegations, identifies specifics instead of making vague references, etc.

    In other words, it’s a cheap way to try to scare someone – a bullying tactic.

  20. @Maximillian, OK, if Ken (Popehat) White says that vague legal threat letters are a sign of bad lawyering, then that’s good enough for me. I’ve just seen so much of it that I searched for tactical purpose — but meritless thuggery works, too.

  21. “Meritless thuggery” can be viewed as tactical, of course. If you’ve got no merit, maybe bluster will work.

    If it does, the lawyer’s earned his pay.

  22. Alleged advice to law students in class on courtroom behavior:

    If the law is on your side, pound the law. If the facts are on your side, pound the facts. If neither the law nor the facts are on your side, pound the table.

    I’m visualizing this lawyer as a small primate pounding the ground gorilla-style….

  23. The bit about the ‘OK’ hand signal being intended to outline a ‘WP’ standing for ‘white power’ appears to be doubtful according to the ADL, by the way. According to ADL, that meme was planted by 4chan denizens as part of ‘Operation O-KKK’ starting a year ago, when an anonymous 4channer told the forum ‘we must flood Twitter and other social media websites…claiming that the OK hand sign is a symbol of white supremacy’, as a meme-hacking hoax. Linked coverage of this by The Independent goes on to say ‘The ADL said the OK hoax was simply the latest in a series by 4channers and others, to try and take innocuous items, symbols or gestures and falsely attribute white supremacist meanings to them. One was the concept that white supremacists were drinking milk to show “the superiority of the white race” and the “purity of white milk”.’

    I imagine del Arroz was probably aware of this background, and included the gesture in his photograph in order to (further) troll critics and trip them up.

  24. The OK hand sign didn’t start as a white power symbol, and there are a variety of theories about how it started, but it had now been widely adopted by the alt-right.

    This article looks at the history, and also notes that symbols don’t have inherent meaning. They are imbued with meaning, and those meanings can change.
    The OK sign is becoming an alt-right symbol

  25. Lis, of course you’re entirely right that symbols’ meanings are subject to change. (Just ask the Norwegian Olympic Alpine ski team.)

    My point mostly was this was known to have been the result of a 4chan meme-hacking effort to create the perception. The Anti-Defamation League did their homework on that, and so I believe their tale of where it came from.

    And the other part of my point is, I think del Arroz’s use of the symbol is a tactical thing, hoping to get attacked over it and then be able to claim it’s just an innocent “OK” symbol and that critics have gone crazy (and possibly hoping also to attract money backing from white supremacists through this craftily deniable dog-whistle at the same time). I’m just warning of the rhetorical trap.

  26. Rick Moen: The Anti-Defamation League did their homework on that, and so I believe their tale of where it came from.

    Sure, that’s where it came from. But that was almost 3 years ago.

    After nearly 3 years of increasing and pervasive use by white nationalists, it’s crossed over from an attempt to troll people and become an actual white nationalist symbol.

    And if you need confirmation, just check out all of the white nationalists who converse with JDA on Twitter.

  27. When I was a kid people used the “OK” sign all the time. It had been a long time since I’d noticed anyone using it, until this recent effort by trolls to appropriate it.

    I thought I’d ask how many of you have seen people use the “OK” sign (for its original purpose) in the past couple years?

    It’s easier to appropriate something that has fallen out of regular use.

  28. @Mike

    The last time I saw it was on a rerun of Friends, which mostly made me think it was a long time since I’d seen it used.

  29. JJ, you make a convincing case, as usual. No, I hadn’t looked at this whiny little self-promoting dweeb’s Twitter stream: Delving through his blog postings was bad enough.

    (I really like Christian Brunschen’s take on the matter.)

  30. JJ, hang on just a moment, four years?

    My source about Anti-Defamation League having traced the association with white supremacism to an anonymous 4chaner…

    announcing “Operation O-KKK” in February, telling 4chan members “we must flood Twitter and other social media websites…claiming that the OK hand sign is a symbol of white supremacy”.

    …was an article in The Independent published 4 May 2017. So, the February in question is implied to have been February 2017.

    Now, I don’t typically spend time looking into white supremacists, beyond taking personal satisfaction from visiting the courtyard in Akershus Fortress, Oslo, where Vidkun Quisling and a number of other examples faced the firing squad, so I’m certainly not saying your four year figure is wrong, but I’m curious where it came from.

  31. Rick, the article I linked to identifies–with image–an early 2015 usage in a Pepe the Frog image (another appropriated symbol.) Also a usage by Malik Obama in a 2016 tweet, using the symbol in his profile picture and saying, “I look like Pepe the Frog.”

  32. I figure this is a trick that works really well: Take a signifier of some sort–the okay sign, the number 23, whatever–and tell people someone they should be afraid of uses it as a recognition symbol. That’ll prime you nicely to start noticing it when you didn’t before and to believe those you are afraid of are more widespread than you think.

  33. @John I remember the movie “The Number 23” explored that phenomenon with the titular number…

  34. @John A. Arkansawyer–

    I figure this is a trick that works really well: Take a signifier of some sort–the okay sign, the number 23, whatever–and tell people someone they should be afraid of uses it as a recognition symbol. That’ll prime you nicely to start noticing it when you didn’t before and to believe those you are afraid of are more widespread than you think.

    This works especially well when the hate group people are told use it, in this case the alt-right and white supremacists, really do adopt it as a recognition symbol.

    Or did you miss that part? It may have started as a hoax. Then the alt-right and white supremacists decided it was a really neat-o idea.

  35. @Lis Carey: I didn’t miss that part. I’m saying making it the first reading of the OK sign is bullshit for gullible frightened people, about as solid as the UN plot to invade America by following the coded directions on street signs. That’s the right-wing paranoid style; this is the liberal equivalent.

  36. @John A. Arkansawyer– And yet the OK sign, commonly used in my childhood, had dropped out of common use long enough ago before it became associated with the alt-right that, if the last time I saw it in its former meaning wasn’t when I was a child, I literally don’t remember it. It’s not a sign that’s in common use by anyone other than the alt-right now.

    Now, when I say, “not in common use,” I don’t mean that literally no one else at all uses it. I would expect it to remain in use by at least some percentage of people older than me, and its persistence in localized pockets seems quite plausible.

    But otherwise it’s pretty rare, now, except with the alt-right.

    There’s also the awkward fact, commented on above, of JDA’s feed being well-populated with the openly alt-right, and him clearly being quite comfortable with that.

    You’re straining at gnats, looking for a bit of “both sides” cover for him.

  37. John: I don’t assume anyone making the OK hand symbol (Or using the Tyr, per the Nordic sweater above) is a white supremacist. (In the case of the Tyr, I know way too many Norse history fanatics, including people who used it as a tattoo, who don’t mean it remotely that way.) I am perfectly capable of assuming a number of people who used it through their lives might simply mean it as they always did, and at *worst* I might warn them it’s collecting a new association so they don’t get blindsided if someone does make that mistake.

    But when someone **already associated** with white supremacists uses it, even if he identifies as Hispanic, I AM going to give the gesture a side-eye, and speculate why they are doing it.

    Denying someone in JDA’s position could possibly mean it as a dog whistle would be just as bad as assuming that little old lady who has been habitually making “ok” gestures since her teens DOES mean it as a dog whistle.

  38. @Lis Carey, Lenora Rose: I expressed myself poorly, didn’t I? You’ve got reason to make the assumption in this particular case and I shouldn’t’ve implied otherwise.

    I do think there is a limit to how useful divining from dogwhistles can be, and I do think people tend to mis-estimate the strength and numbers of their opponents.

  39. Thank you.

    I continue to believe that when it comes to actual White supremacists and other right-wing extremists, they are few in number and quite yappy, as was demonstrated with the varied Puppy campaigns. I am still liable to think there are too many people out there who might not be that extreme — and who are definitely not my enemy — but might be used or duped by people who are, and who are still disturbingly comfortable with people who express authoritarianism or bigotry, as demonstrated by Trump voters and the recent Alabama senate run (Even though they were outvoted in the latter case and arguably in the former.)

  40. @Christian Brunschen: interesting link, although I’ve been told that thumbs-up is also rude in the UK and Australia (rough translation: “I’m all right, !@#$%^&*! you.” — less specific, still rude enough that IIRC US-published guidebooks warned against it.

  41. @Chip

    I guess you could use thumbs-up sarcastically in the UK, but it’s not automatically rude. It doesn’t get used that much though – you might use it to signal an affirmative over a long distance, or to thank another driver for letting you out.

  42. @Chip Hitchcock,

    Thumbs up is rude in UK & Australia??? That’s news to me. May I ask where that information came from?

    (I’m reasonably sure the thumbs up is not rude in Australia. There’s even a book titled Thumbs Up Australia about hitchhiking.)

  43. I thought I’d ask how many of you have seen people use the “OK” sign (for its original purpose) in the past couple years?

    I use it several times a week, but it is a scuba hand signal, and I use it with that in mind.
    This time of year though I’m generally using it as an appreciative gesture towards car drivers who’ve not cut me up while I’m cycling.

    The Alt-Wrong movement has little traction in the UK.

  44. NickPheas, interesting; it’s “cut me up” when someone unexpectedly swerves in front of you (causing you to brake or swerve in your turn) in traffic in the UK? In the US, it’s “cut me off”.

    (You say “cut me up” and I think of Mad-Max knives on the cars…. <grin>)

  45. @JJ. Actually, I prefer the Pixel Noir, 2013. It’s got a great nutty nose with hints of flame broil that somehow reminds me of the fact that in some asian countries they still eat puppies….

  46. @Leonora Rose: well, all I can say about that is: Cruz carved swastikas onto his magazines and the people who he trained with (Republic of Florida) stated, to the press, (paraphrased) “there are a lot of jews at that school and they were bothering him”, making Jennifer Guttenberg the most recent jew to be killed by Nazis in the US.
    These people can not be ignored. they ratchet up and ratchet up and the only thing that stops them is being taken down, incarcerated or sued into bankruptcy – which only serves to make them martyrs to their cause. But that is not nearly as bad as not seriously discouraging them, before they come to believe their “antics” are acceptable, if not applauded, by wider society.

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