‘It’s Okay to Be White’ Trends on Twitter

The infamous “It’s Okay to Be White” slogan, originating on internet boards such as 4chan, hasn’t been entirely well-received in its short two-year history. In spite of the negative press the slogan has been dealt, ‘It’s Okay to Be White’ began trending on Twitter in the US last night, continuing into the morning.

National File also discovered that there had been over 150 incidents involving the catchy fliers.

DOCUMENTS: 150+ Cases Of Outrage, Manhunts Over ‘It’s OK To Be White’, Poster Activist Responds

Here are some tweets on the trending hashtag:

https://twitter.com/Michael_A2506/status/1211915649506795520

https://twitter.com/CodesterRBLX/status/1211885240182067200

In spite of various tweets attempting to demonstrate why “It’s Okay to Be White” exists, some didn’t take too kindly to the polarizing hashtag.

Facing a clear increase in anti-white narratives, the simple slogan reveals the anti-whiteness ubiquitous in the mainstream media.

The message is clear: if something as simple as “It’s Okay to Be White” elicits an outrage, then surely, it’s not OK to be white.

Those directly opposed to the message will draw attention to those posting the stickers, calling them “white supremacists.” The meaning of “It’s Okay to Be White”–like Pepe the Frog and the OK Sign–were recently recoded to signify something akin to white supremacy.

On the ‘It’s Okay to Be White’ sticker, the ADL writes:

The original idea behind the campaign was to choose an ostensibly innocuous and inoffensive slogan, put that slogan on fliers bereft of any other words or imagery, then place the fliers in public locations. Originators assumed that “liberals” would react negatively to such fliers and condemn them or take them down, thus “proving” that liberals did not even think it was “okay” to be white.

Whether the original trollers were white supremacist or not, actual white supremacists quickly began to promote the campaign—often adding Internet links to white supremacist websites to the fliers or combining the phrase with white supremacist language or imagery. This was not a surprise, as white supremacists had themselves used the phrase in the past—including on fliers—long before the 4chan campaign originated.

The original flier campaign occurred in late October 2017 and a similar campaign took place at the same time in 2018, but use of the phrase has extended far beyond the flier campaigns.