Origins Of 'Terrorist Fist Jab' Revealed

Slate's Christopher Beam has reflected on how the Obama fist-bump meme has grown from a simple celebratory gesture between Barack and Michelle Obama to the diabolical central psychological gesture from yesterday's cover of the New Yorker. And, for what it's worth, he's taking responsibility for it:

It's often asked, "Where does stupid stuff on the Internet come from?" In this instance, I think probably it came from me. Although I didn't originate the conceit, I'm pretty sure that I'm the one who put it in circulation. Er, sorry. Like The New Yorker, I never intended anyone to take it as anything other than a laughable example of ignorance.

The morning after Obama locked up the nomination, I was writing a "Trailhead" item that mocked the media's difficulty in figuring out what to call the now famous gesture. "Fist-pound," "knuckle-bump," and "fist-to-fist thumbs up" were among the funnier examples, but one of them--"Hezbollah-style fist jab"--was particularly risible. It came from the Web site for Human Events, a hard-right weekly. Unfortunately, I failed to note that its provenance was not the magazine itself but a reader comment posted below an unrelated column by Cal Thomas. I linked the phrase to the column but didn't explain that the words weren't Thomas'.

...

When I realized the confusion I'd helped cause, I posted a correction. But it was too late. Liberal bloggers from all over had already seized on the phrase. Time and Politico misreported that the words were Thomas'. Then, fatefully, Fox News anchor E.D. Hill jauntily paraphrased "Hezbollah-style fist jab" on air as "terrorist fist jab." Hill wasn't endorsing the phrase, but she failed to make clear that she was citing someone else's characterization. She apologized the next day but lost her show anyway.

It's a nice gesture, and a great post, from Beam, but he needn't feel all that bad about what happened to E.D. Hill, who characterized the situation, in her apology, by saying, "I mentioned various ways the Obamas' fist pump in St. Paul had been characterized in the media," which makes it sound as if the "terrorist fist-jab" meme had garnered a lot of media attention at the time, when in reality, the only person in "the media" who had used the term prior to Hill appears to have been Beam.

Comments

[nleath]

What do you call it when Howie Mandel "fist bumps" the contestants on Deal or No Deal? He doesn't shake hands with anyone. Why? Howie Mandel has OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) for those of you who don't know.

[mergina]

they should start banging hips next. just imagine what THEY would make out of that.
'Damn hipbangers'

[TuFu]

Where are the T-shirts with pictures of Glenn Beck, Bush Limbaugh, Mike Savage, et.al. with the label of AMERICAN TERRORIST. Hate talk radio is hate speech. Exercise your rights as a citizen and make a citizen's arrest when they spew hate and vile lies. What is good for Bin Laden is good for them: hunted down, never a moments rest, never knowing when they will get what they richly deserive thinking the American public and Democrats are too spineless and weak kneed to call them out.
Either that or lose a country for what they propose is not a country I want to live in. Do you?
These are American Terrorists. A decade of letting them go unchallenged is at an end.

[TheRealMacDaddy]

The only thing to come from all this BS (and it IS a GOOD thing) is E.D. Hill lost her job! Now if they could dump some more gasbags at Fox.

[Okieborn]

Boring !!!
Lets get down to the good stuff !!

Impeaching the "WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD" !!!

[cjmartinez]

I'm sorry. I wasn't listening.

[PAposter]

Damn, I was hoping you read it, so I wouldn't have to, LOL!

[lboucher]

The teleprompter says it all! Without a teleprompter Obama is a human gaffe machine!!!

[arkgrfx61]

You mean the one that McCain uses?
If you are referring to the stand that is in front of Obama and Michelle, you TOO must need your eyes checked.

McCain - the ORIGINAL gaffe-machine.

[oneview]

What is it about images that are so interesting? Remember Mike Dukakis in his helmet riding in the tank?

[lennix]

you know that we are in all kinds of hell in this country and what are we talking about fist bunps thanks jason as always you shown us how stupid this is

[TGCNY]

No News here

[fishercat264]

The "fist bump" became prevalent in the black sporting community in the '80s because it is used by boxers, many of whom were black, on TV every Saturday, and household names - Hearns, Holmes, Briscoe, Leonard, Hagler, Pryor, etc. You bump fists at the start of a bout because you really can't "shake hands" wearing a boxing glove and "come out fighting." The bump was universal in gyms for that reason and also because it avoided "grip contests," i.e., trying to make the other guy wince.

[Ivar]

Fiosher....and was picked up by high school kids thence to grammar school. It has been around for years and years...long before we started talking about terrorists kids still use it as do adults. All this uproar is a bunch of BS.

[dtrain51]

Well I thought it really caught on when Tiger Woods and his man Steve start doing it on the PGA tour.

[MildenHall]

You mean to say, Hezbollah didn't start this? Does Fox know about this??? Somebody get them on tha phone. This is Breaking News.

[RevSpaminator]

And here I was thinking this was another communist plot to steal our precious bodily fluids.

[CJGibson]

"Liberal bloggers from all over had already seized on the phrase. Time and Politico misreported that the words were Thomas'. Then, fatefully, Fox News anchor E.D. Hill jauntily paraphrased "Hezbollah-style fist jab" on air as "terrorist fist jab."

"when in reality, the only person in "the media" who had used the term prior to Hill appears to have been Beam"

Time and Politico aren't "the media"?

[jankvkleve]

Something very similar was called "ring banging." It referred to knocking class rings together by alumni of a university. The practice of ring banging was explained to me by a Republican who engaged in it.

[HatingTheGame]

Actually, that was probably a (closeted) Republican engaging in homosexual activity. Ring banging indeed.

[sven1olaf]

zomg... LOL

[JonSmiley]

Since Obama won the nomination everyone I know has been doing the "Hezbollah fist jab".

LOL. I'm sorry but that's just too funny.

[GeoLee]

In the early 80's when I counseled at a school for high risk students, most of whom were really into drugs and gangs, the students told me it was a gang greeting sign.

[shengirl]

Those pants almost around the knees also goes to the same culture, they supposedly symbolize being in prison, where belts are not allowed. But so what, eventually many things make their way into the mainstream and nobody remembers where they came from.

[HatingTheGame]

"nobody remembers where they came from."

Exactly, and that's what pisses people off. White folk rip off culture, invest it with whiteness, and then claim it as their own, or "mainstream" as you called it.

There is no acknowledgement of where it came from, and the importance that other cultures, especially black culture, in American culture.

Its unconsciousness, perhaps unintentional at the broad level, but it is racism. White supremacy is the belief of white culture uber alles, even if it isn't white culture at all.

The thing that fascinates me about Obama's impact is that very rarely does a presidential candidate, or any elite politician, propagate innovation in culture.

If he can do that, just think of what he can do when he's president :-)

[Ivar]

GeoLee, When I went to high school (and that was before the 80's) We called them hip hangers. Had nothing to do with prisons, although yours is a more interesting story.