Move over OK hand gesture – you’re so Sept. 26. Now, "bowl cuts" are the latest symbol of “white supremacy.”
According to the Anti-Defamation League, the terrible ‘90s haircut all the moms made their sons get is apparently an indicator that you think white people should dominate the Earth. Or something.
Rolling Stone reports:
As recently as a few years ago, the bowl cut was primarily known as an unfashionable hairstyle popular among toddlers whose parents cut their hair, and 1990s child stars. Over the past few years, however, the bowl cut has gone from shorthand for male uncoolness to a chilling symbol of racism and extremist violence, according to a recent report from the Anti-Defamation League.
Indeed, the ADL does include the “bowl cut” among its most updated list of “hate symbols,” alleging on their site that “The ‘Bowlcut’ is an image of a bowl-shaped haircut resembling the one sported by white supremacist mass killer Dylan Roof. People who use the ‘bowlcut’ image or other ‘bowl’ references admire Roof and call for others to emulate his racist murders.”
The ADL claims Roof's haircut was emulated by other white supremacists in the wake of the Charleston Church shooting, during which Roof shot and killed nine black church-goers on June 17, 2015. According to the group, the style and even the word "bowl cut" have popped up in white supremacists' discussions in online forums, therefore making it a "hate" symbol.
So there you have it, folks. A violent psychopath had a bad hair job and that makes anyone else who wears one a walking billboard for racism and mass murder. Got it.
Of course, also included on ADL's list are “100%,” the numbers 12, 13, 14 and 18 (among others), the "OK" hand symbol, pit bulls, the Norse god Thor’s mythical hammer, and merely the word “hate.” So perhaps we shouldn’t take this list of “hate symbols” seriously – as if we didn’t know that already.