The secret anti-Semitic "quenelle" gesture.

in racism •  5 years ago 

Casting an eye to French current events, as I try to do once in a while, can be an interesting experience for an American these days. See the quenelle, and if you don't know what I mean, follow the link and read.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quenelle_(gesture)

The quenelle (French pronunciation: ​[kə.nɛl]) is a gesture created and popularized by French political activist and comedian Dieudonné M'bala M'bala. He first used it in 2005 in his sketch entitled "1905" about French secularism, and has used it since in a wide variety of contexts.The quenelle became viral, with many photos posted to the internet showing individuals posing while performing quenelles at mundane places (wedding parties, high school classes, etc.).

The parallel with the American "the ok gesture secretly means white power" moral panic is unmistakable. The same considerations apply across the board: anyone could make the gesture, even on accident, and some almost certainly have. Chaos spreads from both the false positives--"I didn't mean it THAT way!"--and the false negatives--what we used to call a dog whistle in simpler times. Eventually everyone who keeps caring about it drives themselves crazy and becomes a worse human being in the process.

I find it much less probable that what each of our several political cultures truly needed at this moment was a unique, culturally relevant and fascist-vague hand gesture. Structural forces don't produce such obvious twins.

I find it much more probable that we're each looking over one another's shoulders, egging one another on to become meaner and more suspicious.

I think we should maybe stop that.

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