David Menzies examines the "OK" symbol controversy, tracing its racist labeling to an alt-right hoax while criticizing the Chicago Cubs’ lifetime ban on a fan without investigation, likening it to perceived leniency for violent crimes. He opposes censoring the gesture in pizza boxes or state slogans like "Oklahoma is okay," questioning racial bias in interpretation, then shifts to Justice Matthew Begby’s statue removal in New Westminster, BC, arguing it ignores his colonial-era fairness and conflates historical context with modern systemic racism. Citing a 2016 Washington Post poll where 90% of Native Americans rejected the "Washington Redskins" nickname, Menzies accuses elites of imposing selective narratives while neglecting issues like reserve water access or economic disparities. The episode also covers Tommy Robinson’s punitive recommitment in London, exposing BBC journalist Dominique Cassiani’s alleged role in pressuring authorities to suppress coverage, mirroring authoritarian media tactics—warning such trends could spread to North America. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, a Chicago Cubs fan is banned for life from Wrigley Field for doing this.
It's May 15th, I'm David Menzies, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say to the government is because it's my bloody right to do so.
So check out this picture of broadcaster Doug Glanville at a Chicago Cubs game the other day.
This image has caused quite the fecal storm.
The focus of your attention, by the way, shouldn't be on Glanville, but on the fan in the gray cub sweatshirt who's using his fingers to make the okay symbol.
Oh, cue the outrage.
Now, I have a true confession to make here, folks, which perhaps speaks of my ignorance on modern day symbolism because I only recently learned that the OK symbol is supposedly the living logo of the white supremacist movement.
I guess those silly white hoods and cumbersome burning crosses were getting to be a wee bit too much to lug around.
Whereas flashing an okay sign is wonderfully portable and something that can be done instantaneously, or so I've been told.
You see, maybe the reason I've been asleep when it comes to all the nuances associated with white supremacy is that when one is endlessly barked at by everyone from school board chairs to mainstream media talking heads that white supremacists are the number one threat in the world today and that Caucasians are responsible for all the misery in the world and that white privilege continues to thrive.
Well, all of that rhetoric kind of blurs into the wallpaper, so to speak, thereby making a honky like me kind of tune out and drift away, only to be shaken back to reality thanks to the next outburst of evil whiteness, such as that okay gesture, which I have learned is tantamount to donning a Ku Klux Klan outfit and waving around a noose.
By the way, as an aside, you know why I could never be a white supremacist, such as a KKK member, even if I harbored white power beliefs?
It's those ridiculous costumes and those goofy names.
I mean, all those pointy-headed hoods and going by the title of Grand Wizard or Grand Dragon.
I mean, are you kidding me?
Is this supposed to be a hate group or a bunch of fanboys staging a low-rent Harry Potter convention?
Meanwhile, back at the old ballpark, judgment was rendered swiftly against that Cubs fan.
At a news conference, Chicago Cubs president Theo Epstein said the team was able to determine the fan's name and this individual will never be allowed to set foot within Hallowed Wrigley Field ever again.
How that will be enforced remains to be seen, especially if this fan returns donning a burqa or in a cab.
And hey, look on the bright side, such togs provide superb protection from UV exposure in the summertime.
Although one does turn into a sweaty Betty while residing in such a fabric coffin when the temperature goes north of 75.
Anyway, Epstein continues, quote, we've made clear how egregious and unacceptable that behavior is, and there's no place for it in our society and baseball and certainly no place in Wrigley Field.
The person responsible for that gesture will never be welcomed back at Wrigley Field.
I think it's important to have a strong response to send a message that this is a place of inclusion, end quote.
Well, there's a news flash.
Wrigley Field is a place of inclusion.
Do you know what good seats go for at Wrigley, folks?
I mean, thank God for the White Sox.
No problem getting tickets to see those guys play.
But me thinks Chicago's Southside franchise better work on that ivory-hued nickname in case anyone gets the wrong idea.
What with this whole narrative of whiteness being akin to evilness?
Now, don't get me wrong, if you are a white supremacist or if you are any kind of supremacist for that matter, I have 0.0 tolerance or empathy for you.
Racism is wrong, and my grandfather spent five years of his life fighting those sadistic supremacists known as the Nazis some 80 years ago.
And luckily for us all, the good guys indeed won.
Even so, the question arises, was flashing the timeless gesture known as the OK symbol truly an act of racism by that Cubs fan?
Much of the coverage by the mainstream media has bordered on the hysterical with the reporters resembling villagers brandishing pitchforks and torches as they seek out an audience with the Frankenstein monster.
But I came across a far more balanced piece in Yahoo.com that rightfully notes that the flashing of the okay gesture might be a bit more nuanced and complicated than one might think.
Writer Craig Calcatera notes that while the Cubs are properly investigating this incident, even though they concluded that a lifetime ban was the only appropriate punishment prior to the conclusion of their investigation, he states that the full context of the okay gesture and all that surrounds it is worth appreciating before reaching a conclusion on this matter.
Quote, as explained here by the Anti-Defamation League, that okay style gesture was originally cast as a white power symbol as a trolling hoax by some associated with the alt-right movement.
The idea?
Lots of people make okay symbols on camera and if enough people believed it actually meant white power, people who are not engaging in racist behavior would be accused of doing so, thereby undermining legitimate claims of racism as liberal hysteria or people crying wolf, end quote.
So the genesis of the okay symbol being a symbol of white power was really all a goof.
But then a perversely bizarre thing happened thanks to all this trolling, which is to say that actual white supremacists started adopting the gesture allegedly in an ironic fashion.
However, as Calcaterra notes, irony kind of goes out the window when the person acting ironically happens to be a bona fide white supremacist.
I know it's kind of like that Meryl Street movie, isn't it?
You know, it's complicated.
So the question arises, was this symbol flashed as something mocking white supremacy?
Or is the fan an actual white supremacist that just couldn't resist taking a dig at a black broadcaster?
And furthermore, does it even matter what the motivation was given that perhaps society at large, well at least according to some, must discontinue the use of the OK symbol regardless of the context, as this gesture has been appropriated by Klansmen and other odious racists.
Indeed, if one takes their talking points from the mainstream media, it would appear that the OK symbol is already verboten right up there with the Heil Hitler salute.
Indeed, in presenting that image of the Cubs fan doing the okay gesture, some media outlets actually censored the man's hand entirely with a blue dot, which kind of puts the okay gesture in the same ballpark as the infamous Prophet Muhammad caricatures.
But if these are indeed the new rules, are we not opening up an extra large can of worms here?
For example, how many of us have ordered a pizza from an independent pizzeria and had it delivered in a box featuring that iconic illustration of a chubby, winking chef displaying the okay gesture?
Wow, who knew Luigi was a card-carrying Klansman, eh?
By the way, my advice for pizza purveyors the world over, destroy that packaging immediately lest you deliver a pepperoni pie to an uber-sensitive social justice warrior who is also very savvy in terms of gaming the system when it comes to the grief industry.
Translation, you really don't want to receive a summons from a human rights commission just because of offensive pizza packaging.
And say, what happens when a person of color displays that gesture like Kanye West did last year?
Does he get a pass based on skin color?
Or since Kanye sports a MAGA hat and supports President Trump these days, is he now to be dismissed by the progressives as an Uncle Tom or an Oreo and therefore no longer truly black?
Also, given that the new normal when it comes to individuals supposedly acting out badly means going back years or even decades to sniff out any potential indiscretions, including lewd comments written in high school yearbooks, will the same apply to those who flashed the okay gesture back when it was, well, perfectly okay to do so?
Check out this picture of that darling of the left, Bill Clinton himself.
Oh, damn it, Mr. President.
Doing the okay thingy was fine back whenever, but you should have known it would be appropriated by the nasty types in the future, you know.
In fact, how soon will it be before it's no longer okay to even say the word okay?
Hey, does the state of Oklahoma still use the slogan, Oklahoma is okay on its license plates?
If so, methinks it's time for a recall and a redesign.
Judging Historical Figures Today00:13:24
I also urge Major League Baseball to come up with a more suitable letter to denote a strikeout.
Current letter is K, and often when there's an ace on the mound mowing down the opposition's batting order, fans display a series of Ks up in the bleachers.
Such signage practice is all well and good when the number of strikeouts is two or less or four and more.
But when three consecutive Ks are displayed, oh, we all know what that stands for.
There's one other issue to address when it comes to OK Gate, and that is this thorny issue of crime and punishment.
Even though the Cubs are investigating the incident, they have already announced the penalty, namely a lifetime ban for the fan prior to even beginning the investigation, which makes one wonder why even bother having an investigation in the first place.
But it's odd, isn't it?
We give second chances to murderers.
Heck, in this country, life in prison for first-degree murder might result in a sentence of just 14 years, which will, of course, further be whittled down if the murderer behaves well behind bars.
We also give second chances to terrorists, welcoming back jihadists from overseas, giving them a warm hug and poetry classes and sometimes even an eight-figure check.
But commit a perceived thought crime?
Oh, that's unforgivable, whether one's at the ballpark or commenting via social media.
Indeed, do something silly, albeit harmless, or pin something that's a tad too contrarian, and justice will be both swift and severe.
Bottom line, please try to convince me that we truly have our priorities in order, okay?
Oops, I mean to say, all right.
Keep it here, folks.
More of the Ezra Levent Show to come after this.
Statues tend to be constructed out of sturdy stuff, allowing them to endure everything from the wrath of Mother Nature to the aftermath of roosting pigeons.
But alas, these days, statues must endure that, which is known as political correctness, an ominous force that mercilessly mows down monuments due to the decree of the social justice warrior set.
And the latest victim, well, it's an edifice of Justice Matthew Begby in New Westminster, BC.
Begby's crime?
Well, apparently, he carried out the rule of law back when British Columbia was still a colony.
And because some natives received the death penalty more than 150 years ago, that now makes Matthew Begby judge non-grata.
And that also means his statue must be removed from the sensitive eyes of SJW types, lest they be triggered.
Joining me now with more on the Matthew Begby Segba is Aaron Gunn with BC Proud.
Welcome to the Ezra Levant Show, Aaron.
Thank you for having me.
A pleasure.
So, Aaron, Judge Begby is being painted as an anti-native racist by the usual suspects.
But is this indeed historically accurate?
No, it's not historically accurate at all, which is why it's such an escalation.
When it comes to trying to erase our history and expunge our past, these are individuals now that are going after historical figures from Canadian history that were considered progressive at their time.
This is an individual that actually went out of his way.
You can think this is the 1860s, to learn Shilcotin and learn Chinook so he could actually interact with Aboriginal individuals in his court.
He is a justice that struck down legislation from the provincial government that was considered discriminatory towards Chinese British Columbians.
He's an individual with a long, long track record of being ahead of his time, and yet they're still going after him, anyways.
Basically, any individual, regardless of where they were on the political spectrum, that is in any way connected to British Columbia and Canada's colonial past, whatever that means, is now in their crosshairs.
And I believe you said in your commentary that you posted online that he was the first or one of the first judges who basically ruled on the guilt of a white individual based solely on Aboriginal testimony, which was unheard of at the time.
Exactly, exactly.
And that goes back to the history of Sir Matthew Begby, why he's such a, he's basically an institution here in British Columbia, is that he was a judge that was all about the rule of law.
Everyone had to be treated fairly under the rule of law.
And that goes, that applied to everyone, whether you were Chinese or European ancestry or a First Nations individual.
So he just, he applauded the law as the facts presented themselves, irrespective of the race, your color, your skin.
And of course, for more than half a century, Aaron, we haven't had the death penalty in Canada.
But it's worth noting that when it came to those individuals who did receive capital punishment, that the death penalty was indeed mandatory back then in terms of those found guilty in murder cases.
So, in other words, his hands were cuffed.
He had no leeway under the rules of the law back then.
No, exactly.
And I mean, we're talking about like the 1860s.
Like, what do people realistically think was the punishment going to be for a crime like that?
And by the way, this is something that was openly confessed to.
The facts of this case aren't in question.
These are 19 individuals who had their throats slit and were bodies mutilated after they were murdered.
So the facts of this case aren't even in question.
So how they've managed to turn this into an issue about Sir Matthew Begby is beyond me.
So, Aaron, who are the assassins, if you will, behind this decision of removing the statue?
So it's, I mean, New Westminster City Council, which is a suburb of Vancouver, are the ones that I guess are the tip of the spear on actually removing the statue.
Now, it's the same voice as these progressive social justice warriors, I'm sure, that have pushed them to take this dramatic action.
This is an individual, Sir Matthew Begby.
There's schools named after him.
I believe there's two mountains named after him close to the Alberta-BC border.
He's got public squares named after him.
And it's just, it's one of these things where it's where does this end?
Here in Victoria, they obviously tore down the statue of Sir John A. MacDonald.
And this is just the latest in this now long line of sequence of events of radical municipal governments tearing down these statues and other parts of Canadian history.
Indeed, Aaron, you say where does it end?
But as you mentioned, there's so many other places named after this individual.
Do those have to be, I don't know what the word is, rebranded, reimagined to, now that the statue is edifice non-grata?
Oh, exactly.
I mean, after I filmed that video in New Westminster, I actually went and had a drink at the Sir Matthew Begbie pub, which is just down the street.
So, and of course it raises this question.
Right here, I'm living in the city of Victoria, named after a quote-unquote colonial queen.
We live in the province of British Columbia.
So how much longer do we have to wait until these radical activists start going after the names of cities and the province itself?
Oh, not that long at all, I would argue, Aaron, unfortunately.
I mean, this upcoming weekend, we in Ontario will be celebrating Victoria Day.
I could see in my lifetime that being changed, much as Dominion Day was changed by the Trudeau Liberals to Canada Day back in 1982, with, by the way, less than a quorum in the House of Commons at the time.
But that's another story.
But the thing is, going back to the statue, Aaron, we see this as a trend in North America.
Why do we have to cave into this idea that this individual who is idolized on a statue had some indiscretions, therefore it must be moved to another place or torn down entirely?
I would argue, Aaron, that show me a great man, and I will show you also a flawed man.
There is no such thing as perfection, and yet we seem to have a standard.
And when I say we, I really mean the social justice warriors out there.
There seems to be this mindset that unless you have a resume that is as clean as the driven snow, you don't deserve to be in the public square any longer.
Well, that's, I mean, you're banging on there.
It's this weird trend of judging historical figures through the lens of our century instead of their own.
And it's incredibly troubling.
I will point out that there's an obvious hypocrisy as well, because I think all of these, all of the events of Canadian history are important and should be learned about, just as you said.
But, you know, when it comes to the Aboriginal leaders or anyone who's not connected to colonial history, all of a sudden it's just all the good things that you hear.
It's like they paint this picture of Canada that Europeans came and ruined some kind of utopia that existed before they got here, which obviously isn't true.
And at the end of the day, it's just the truth being obfuscated by the social justice warriors, as you said, to undermine anything that's connected to the history of Canada because they conflate the history of Canada with colonialism, which they consider kind of this original sin concept.
So I think it's very disappointing, and it's undermining the history of an incredible country.
And you know, Aaron, I'd really like to know what natives themselves think.
And I'm not talking about certain chiefs.
I'm not talking about those who have high-ranking talking head positions in the so-called grief industry.
I'm talking about the common everyday native.
What is more important to you?
Eradicating statues that are potentially offensive to Native culture, or maybe getting clean drinking water on your reserve, maybe opening up the pipeline paralysis so you can go to a good, high-paying job.
I think most would side with the latter rather than the former.
What do you think?
Oh, exactly.
I mean, over 90% of First Nations individuals, I'm sure, have no idea that this statue existed or that they should be offended by it.
They're just like you called it the grief industry or this culture victimization that I think is being pushed upon them.
It's not even necessarily even people within their communities that are spearheading this.
I think a lot of the times it's the social justice warriors that got a degree in how colonialism is bad or whatever from whatever university or college.
And now they're just going around trying to force that upon everybody else.
There are serious issues that need to be addressed.
You mentioned drinking water, the economic inequality between First Nations individuals and the rest of Canada.
Those are the serious issues we should be talking about, not trying to relitigate our history from something that happened over 150 years ago.
Oh, 100%.
Aaron, one last point.
I mean, I always harken back to that 2016 poll carried out by the Washington Post, and it must have killed them to publish the results.
But they exclusively polled, I think it was something like 600 Native Americans about whether the nickname and logo of the Washington Redskins was offensive.
And more than 90%, that's 90% of American natives answered no.
In fact, many of them embraced it as a source of pride.
And again, it just shows you, it makes you wonder, because that is the big flashpoint in terms of those who want some additional rebranding or reimaging of an iconic sports franchise, at least.
It just goes to show you what you're hearing from the elites can be radically different from what you're hearing from the everyday people that are living on the reserve or the reservation, as the case may be.
Different From A Journalist00:08:40
That's 100% the case.
The disconnect, I always kind of point out that the level of political correctness is the disconnect or level of distance between kind of the chattering class, the elites, and the everyday Canadian around the water cooler at work.
So, and I think right now the Gulf in this country is as large as it's ever been.
And it's issues like this that I think that are perfect examples of that.
Well, Aaron, I wish there was a happy ending to this story, but because we have spineless politicians in so many provinces and municipalities, it looks like yet again the squeaky wheel gets the Greece.
It's the tyranny of the minority, as I like to call it.
But listen, great piece on yet another sad chapter on how our history is being consigned to the dustbin, even though our nation in the grand scheme of things is just an infant, barely 150 years old.
But keep up with those commentaries and calling BS when you see it in BC, if you will.
For sure, for sure.
Thank you for having me.
You got it.
Thank you so much.
And that was Aaron Gunn with BC Proud.
Keep it here, folks.
More of the Ezra Levent show to come after this.
Hey, folks, as you know, the reason why I am filling in for Ezra is because Ezra is in London right now covering the latest installment of the Tommy Robinson trial.
And speaking of which, here is the very latest.
Ezra Levant here, I'm in London.
Tommy Robinson, let me give you the headline right at the top.
He's been committed to stand trial again for contempt of court.
He'll be back in court here on July 4th and 5th.
I think it's a two-day trial scheduled.
And this stems back to those incidents back at Leeds a year ago.
As you know, he's already been held in contempt for that, served 10 weeks in solitary confinement for that.
The Court of Appeal has quashed that ruling, and yet he has to go stand trial again.
I don't know if in the entire history of the UK this has ever been done before.
It's so punitive.
And there's no cause for it.
The trial outside which he was reporting was not disrupted in any way.
This is clearly punitive.
So that's the news.
And you can find other videos where we go in some depth on that.
But I want to focus in on something I mentioned in passing in another video, and that is the media culture here in the UK.
You know the old saying, if a tree falls in the woods and no one's around to hear, did it make a sound?
That's sort of a Zen question.
I mean, of course it made a sound, but if no one knows it made a sound, it was like it didn't make a sound.
And that's how the media is.
If they report on something, you know about it.
But if they simply ignore something, how do you know what even happened?
And if they all get together to tell a pack of lies about something, how can you ever know the truth?
These are all different ways of describing their treatment of Tommy Robinson.
When he does amazing things, when thousands of people show up for him at an event, if the press can't say anything negative, they'll say nothing at all.
But if he's in any sort of trouble, the press will go to town.
And there was about a thousand people here today, maybe more on the streets.
I'm sure out of those thousand, there were one or two who were a bit rough, maybe one or two who had a drink.
That will be on the front page of the newspapers.
It is the worst media in the free world.
I watch Russia today.
That's Putin State Broadcaster.
I watch TRT, the Turkish State Broadcaster.
I watch Al Jazeera.
The British media, especially the state-run media here, is worse than those.
I know you're thinking, how could it be worse than those?
They are more demonic in their cult-like groupthink.
It's not even that they hate Tommy.
Of course they hate Tommy, they're leftists.
But the group think of it is astounding.
So I mentioned in my other video, I was live tweeting from court and obviously they didn't like that.
So one of them literally interrupted the court by having a note passed to the judge asking the judge to stop me from tweeting.
And the judge, the judges went out, conferred, came back and said, yeah, no, we're still allowed to tweet in this court.
And I knew that because I had permission in previous visits to the court to tweet discussions with senior officials in the court, both judges and clerks and security.
So I knew that.
But just get into the mind for a second of a journalist.
So you see Ezra here from the Rebel, Jessica, our student journalist from the Rebel, other journalists here, and we're not towing the media party line.
So we might be conservative, we might be right-wing, we might be this or that.
Whatever we are, we're different.
We've broken the monopoly, right?
I love it.
Because until we came along, it was just the think-alikes.
And they're so outraged, and they're sitting there in court, and instead of paying attention to the court, they're reading my tweets on their phone.
Hang on, mate, you're supposed to be following the trial.
I'm not following me, following the trial.
And imagine them getting more and more and more irritated.
And then finally sending a note to the judge.
How dare they, by the way?
By what right would they interrupt a judge from listening to a trial?
The chutzpah of that is astounding.
And wouldn't you know it, the judges broke to confer?
And they came back and said everything was fine.
But what?
Would Al Jazeera do that?
Would RT, would Xinghua of China do that?
I don't know.
That is the thuggish tactic of a state broadcaster.
Anyways, during the break, there's this little guy who works for the BBC named Dominique Cassiani.
I don't know if he's like 5'4, so I shouldn't make fun, I'm only 5'9.
He's like this angry little man, and he was so outraged that I complained about him complaining about me.
But I should tell you, and I asked him about this in front of all his friends, because all the British media party were like, oh, we don't like you, Canadian.
Go home, Canadians.
And I said, Dominique, you're a government journalist.
That's different from a journalist.
If you have any sort of qualifier before the word journalist, you take away from it.
I said, Dominique, you're a government journalist.
Will you say in front of your peers here, will you admit to them that last time I was here at the old Bailey, you actually complained to the police?
And it is true.
I don't know if you recall, but last time I was here, I looked out one of these windows from the cafeteria and I saw a crowd below, and I took a very short vid of the crowd.
And Dominique Cassiani of the BBC, again, he didn't ignore me or debate me or counter me.
I swear to God, I've got the email.
He literally wrote to the police to tattle.
They wrote to the police to tattle last time.
They wrote to the judge to tattle this time.
Obviously, I'm here and I'm coming back on July 4th.
And I tell you that story for three reasons.
Number one, to show that you just can't trust the mainstream media.
I mean, that's not even journalism.
That's extreme censorship.
Number two, I want to let you know that they obviously think our reporting is important enough that they want to stop it.
If no one was reading it or watching it, they wouldn't care.
So it's a bit of a feather in our cap.
And I'll check my Twitter stats.
Last time I covered Tommy's trial, I think it was like 12 million impressions for my videos and tweets.
So the BBC hates that.
They're trying to censor it.
And the last point is that we're going to come back and do this again and again until Tommy is finally free.
But what a message of how Canada and the United States will go.
That this kind of gotcha, deplatforming extreme activism masquerading in journalism.
I don't think it's this bad in Canada, United States yet but, as i've said in another video, coming to the Uk is like my own private time machine.
I come here and I see how bad the CBC will be in Canada, how bad the ABC will be in Australia.
When I see how bad the BBC is here, they're literally calling the police on my journalism.
When I see how they're literally interrupting criminal trials because they don't like someone having a different opinion.
I think that what's happening to Tommy is terrible.
Both the abusive process by the police, the prosecutors, the courts.
But the fact that the media who should stand up for a fellow citizen journalist is in fact cheering his censorship and trying to censor any media who cover him is actually to me the scariest thing of all in this trip.