While I am not condoning banning speech, your examples above compile into a pretty disingenuous take. While I'm sure an example could be found if you looked hard enough, I have never once heard of anyone crying 'racist' about normal people making the normal OK hand sign innocently.
I have, however, heard the term 'racist' accurately used to describe people making an inverted OK sign when said people happen to be standing at a Proud Boys rally, or by people who otherwise spend their time hanging out with, or trolling as, white supremacists. [^1]
Same deal with milk. It's only racist when it's being used as a symbol by people who are intentionally being racist:
> "One slide Dr. Novembre has folded into his recent talks depicts a group of white nationalists chugging milk at a 2017 gathering to draw attention to a genetic trait known to be more common in white people than others — the ability to digest lactose as adults." [^2]
That doesn't mean "milk is racist", or that drinking milk is racist; it means unabashed racists seem to enjoy co-opting common symbols as code for their secret clubs.
> While I'm sure an example could be found if you looked hard enough, I have never once heard of anyone crying 'racist' about normal people making the normal OK hand sign innocently.
I have, however, heard the term 'racist' accurately used to describe people making an inverted OK sign when said people happen to be standing at a Proud Boys rally, or by people who otherwise spend their time hanging out with, or trolling as, white supremacists. [^1]
Same deal with milk. It's only racist when it's being used as a symbol by people who are intentionally being racist:
> "One slide Dr. Novembre has folded into his recent talks depicts a group of white nationalists chugging milk at a 2017 gathering to draw attention to a genetic trait known to be more common in white people than others — the ability to digest lactose as adults." [^2]
That doesn't mean "milk is racist", or that drinking milk is racist; it means unabashed racists seem to enjoy co-opting common symbols as code for their secret clubs.
[^1]: https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/okay-h...
[^2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/us/white-supremacists-sci...