/shrug
Come on. Does it really need to be speculated on? That "one guy" is a white supremacist who killed 50+ people - I think it's pretty clear what his intentions were. On top of that, his written manifesto was a) steeped in 4chan memes and winks to those in the know, b) released on either 8chan or 4chan itself. So it is clear he would know the origins and was playing it up
I wouldn't ordinarily expect that of anyone, except that you had already replied.
Perhaps we should define terms. When people use the term "white supremacist symbol" I hear something that is used by everyone including white supremacists to unambiguously signal white supremacy. A Nazi flag. A burning cross. Shaved head, bomber jacket, combat boots, and most importantly, white laces.
The content of these particular symbols stem self-consciously from their progenitors: putative Aryan heritage in the case of the swastika, the purity of Protestant Christian values for the burning cross, etc
A symbol that everyone uses - including white supremacists - to mean something else - "OK" - is not a white supremacist symbol by that definition.
Its history as a purported white supremacist symbol, a joke on a trolling board, doesn't follow that of actual such symbols
The movement to turn it into a white supremacist symbol is now driven largely by serious, earnest, white leftists, curiously enough. I point to the people who are constantly pointing it out as evidence as my evidence. Why is this, I wonder? It's curious.
> his written manifesto was a) steeped in 4chan memes and winks to those in the know
Assuming that's true, then it's even more evidence to me that OK is not a "white supremacist symbol" his own white supremacy notwithstanding. He, your best evidence that it is, this fellow who used it, is well versed in its origin as a joke.
Oh I do deny. Nearly every example ever shown is indistinguishable from accident or people using it for other purposes. Mexican workers "flashes" it while driving around: fired. West Point cadets goofing off, punching each other: sanctioned. Random individuals in photos: obviously white supremacist.
to inflate this non-issue, and then use the very fact of its inflation as justification for its further inflation is reprehensible, and then get actual innocent people labeled as racist. Truly despicable