Kelly Donohue Was Falsely Accused

When on April 27 a Jeopardy! contestant named Kelly Donohue held up three fingers to the camera to celebrate his third win, he was immediately accused of having made a white-supremacist hand gesture. You know, the one where if you allow your thumb and forefinger to touch, it puts you in the Klan. Last summer’s racial unrest poured so much burn-the-witches hysteria on the fire that white-supremacy detection became a kind of sacred cause, and a San Diego truck driver was fired for making the gesture. The previous year, young students at the military academies were widely accused on social media of making a white-power gesture but in fact were merely playing “the circle game.”

Donohue was subjected to a mass instantaneous smear campaign led by other Jeopardy! contestants who banded into a mob of hundreds to coordinate their false accusation. Ben Smith of the New York Times has an excellent summary here. Smith is less judgmental than I am, but let’s call this what it is: hysteria. And not a harmless kind, either. Nearly 600 former contestants signed a letter excoriating Jeopardy! for not editing out the gesture and tarred the show as a dupe of white supremacy. “We cannot stand up for hate. We cannot stand next to hate. We cannot stand onstage with something that looks like hate,” they wrote.

About the Author

Kyle Smith

Kyle Smith is the film critic for the Wall Street Journal.

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When on April 27 a Jeopardy! contestant named Kelly Donohue held up three fingers to the camera to celebrate his third win, he was immediately accused of having made a white-supremacist hand gesture. You know, the one where if you allow your thumb and forefinger to touch, it puts you in the Klan. Last summer’s racial unrest poured so much burn-the-witches hysteria on the fire that white-supremacy detection became a kind of sacred cause, and a San Diego truck driver was fired for making the gesture. The previous year, young students at the military academies were widely accused on social media of making a white-power gesture but in fact were merely playing “the circle game.”

Donohue was subjected to a mass instantaneous smear campaign led by other Jeopardy! contestants who banded into a mob of hundreds to coordinate their false accusation. Ben Smith of the New York Times has an excellent summary here. Smith is less judgmental than I am, but let’s call this what it is: hysteria. And not a harmless kind, either. Nearly 600 former contestants signed a letter excoriating Jeopardy! for not editing out the gesture and tarred the show as a dupe of white supremacy. “We cannot stand up for hate. We cannot stand next to hate. We cannot stand onstage with something that looks like hate,” they wrote.