{"id":7599,"date":"2023-12-04T23:00:37","date_gmt":"2023-12-04T23:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/?p=7599"},"modified":"2023-12-05T05:10:29","modified_gmt":"2023-12-05T05:10:29","slug":"snowflake-a-safe-substitute-symbol-i-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/snowflake-a-safe-substitute-symbol-i-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"Snowflake: a Safe Substitute Symbol, I Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/free-to-agree-with-me-cancel-culture-and-freedom-of-expression\/#self\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" align=\"right\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/brendans-island.com\/blogsource\/20231112ff\/20231115-WhateverHappenedToFreedomFromFear-hblock14-329.jpg?w=640&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Herb Block political cartoon: 'Say, what ever happened to 'freedom-from-fear'?' (August 13, 1951, during McCarthyism) published in Washington Post; see https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/exhibits\/herblocks-history\/fire.html\"><\/a>Text characters, the ones used online at any rate, include symbols that aren&#8217;t letters of the alphabet, punctuation, or numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So far, so obvious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was replying to comments this afternoon, and figured I&#8217;d use the emoji\/dingbat\/whatever &#8220;okay&#8221; hand sign. It seemed like a good idea at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I also figured that, since folks who don&#8217;t live in my part of the world read this, I&#8217;d better do a little research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A gesture that means &#8216;I&#8217;m leaving now and had a good time&#8217; in one culture can, I&#8217;ve gathered, mean &#8216;I reject you&#8217; in another, and I&#8217;m wandering off-topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anyway, I did a quick Google search to see if there were cross-cultural landmines hidden in that touch-the-thumb-and-index-finger gesture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, wouldn&#8217;t you know it, there are. Sort of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2019\/09\/26\/764728163\/the-ok-hand-gesture-is-now-listed-as-a-symbol-of-hate\">The &#8216;OK&#8217; Hand Gesture Is Now Listed As A Symbol Of Hate<\/a>&#8220;<br>Bobby Allyn, NPR (September 26, 2019)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s a good thing I didn&#8217;t use Unicode character 128076. Seems that it&#8217;s now perceived as a white supremacist symbol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/brendans-island.com\/blogsource\/20130220ff\/20140708-Scientific_racism_irish-sharp658.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" align=\"right\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/brendans-island.com\/blogsource\/20130220ff\/20140708-Scientific_racism_irish-329.jpg?w=640&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Strickland Constable's illustration of 'low types'. (1899)\"><\/a>Although I&#8217;m not &#8220;white&#8221; by some standards, which haven&#8217;t been current for several generations now, I&#8217;m definitely melanin-deficient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So finding some symbol which wouldn&#8217;t be quite so likely to inspire alarm and revulsion seemed prudent. Since we had a (very) little snow earlier this afternoon \u2014 and because I like the shape \u2014 I used a snowflake (\u2744) instead of that (divisive?) gesture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I talked about perceptions, labels, fear, and making sense last month:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/free-to-agree-with-me-cancel-culture-and-freedom-of-expression\/\">Free to Agree With Me: Cancel Culture and Freedom of Expression<\/a>&#8220;<br>(November 18, 2023)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Snowflake: a Safe Substitute Symbol, I Hope <a href=\"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/snowflake-a-safe-substitute-symbol-i-hope\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"An unexpectedly naughty gesture, or why I used a snowflake symbol.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"Snowflake: a Safe Substitute Symbol, I Hope","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[213,154,192],"tags":[52,34,116],"class_list":["post-7599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-being-a-writer","category-discursive-detours","category-journal","tag-culture","tag-politics","tag-tolerance"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7Dwtw-1Yz","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7599"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7609,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7599\/revisions\/7609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}