

Anonymous asked in Education & ReferenceWords & Wordplay · 2 months ago

why is it considered racist to use the term "okay"?

22 Answers

  • 2 months ago

    It was often used in countries we were at war with among the common people to express in our own use of the word things were okay.

  • 2 months ago

    I am not aware that anyone is considering the word "OK" to be racist.  However in the last few years a some Whit Supremist groups have begun to use the "Ok" hand symbol as a sign for "White Power" because it is possible to see the letters "W" and "P" in the symbol.  It is possible that they have also begun to connect with the letters "ok".  But I have not seen that.  

    Anyone can decide to make anything a "racist" or "offensive" symbol if they want.  It is only a racist symbol if we decide to let them have it as a racist symbol.  

    Hopefully people are smart enough to consider the context in which they symbol is made and treat it as simple the decades old "OK" sign instead of a racist symbol when it is being used that way.  We do not need to give them any more ground.

  • 2 months ago

    It's spelled OK , ok/ O.K., o.k. "okay" is an incorrect attempt to "spell" the already spelled letters. It actually originally stood for "oll korrect" during a fad in 19th century America of misspelling and then abbreviating phrases. 

    I specifically mention it comes from America because I find it fun knowing how many countries have adopted OK into their language for the same or similar meaning. You are probably referring to the "OK" gesture, where the index finger and thumb make a circle, and then the other three fingers fan out. When held up this means "OK" or "good"/"ready" which can be helpful when things are too loud or you have to be quiet and want to communicate this. 

    The OK gesture was later used for what's sometimes called the "circle game". A kind of continuous social clique game where one person will make the OK gesture, usually by rules, has to be down low/below the waist, and then the person attempts to get someone else to look at their gesture. If they can get someone to look, that person loses. The punishment is often a backhanded slap to the testicles (sack tap). 

      This game became popular in the military (though I would expect more juvenile origins) where young men are forced to sit or stand around doing nothing for hours and get too familiar with each other. This leads to a level of comfort that would enable a game that never ends and involves testicular torture.

      Several years ago, trolls decided to spread a meme that the circle game was actually a racist coded message. In what is becoming ever more common, Poe's Law rears its head. Did extreme SJWs manufacture this origin, or did trolls come up with it to troll SJWs? Did one start and the other feed into it? Very likely. Eventually when enough people claimed it was "a thing", people actually started doing it on purpose to meme or troll others. 

        The final stage came when people started doing it unironically, whether knowing it was originally nonsense or not, embracing it as a symbol for racism. Basically it became a symbol for racism because people lied and claimed it was, and then racists eventually said "why not though?" and so it did. 

  • 2 months ago

    it aint racist mate

  • L
    Lv 5
    2 months ago

    It's not.  The work okay has nothing to do with racism.

  • 2 months ago

    No......and this is the first time I heard of this. 

    Maybe you mean because the word is thought to be of African origen. But that's unsure. Others say from Choctaw Indian. 

    OK. The letter form seems to refer to Martin Van Buren. Known as 'Old Kiderhook'.As he was from Kinderhook NY.

  • 2 months ago

    Don't know how you happen to think that the term OK is racist.  Ive only come to recognise the term as originally being a form of lazy American slang, a 'flip ' way of saying that 'It's correct' or 'Yes'  but its origin is a mystery.

  • 2 months ago

    Tf? Never heard of that being considered “Racist” lmao 

  • 2 months ago

    I have never in my life heard of this. It could be the peson that told you this might have a reason not to like the word. 

  • Anonymous
    2 months ago

    Because everything is racist now.  As a white person, your very existence is deemed racist by the critical theorists.  Just ignore it.

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