Rumors have swirled for years that certain elite members of the black community are part of the secret order of Masons. The Masons are a secret society of brothers who recognize each other through a series of clandestine signals such as a special secret handshake as evidenced by the photos above.

When a friend alerted me to the suspicious hand signals exhibited by rappers Jay Z, Sean Combs and NBA star Ron Artest in the above pics, the first thing I thought was that the handshakes looked like some ol’ regular hood greetings to me. But of course I was wrong, as the friend pointed out.

He told me he was positive the greetings held some special significance because he had heard that Sean, Jigga and Ron were secret members of the Masons. Well, if these Masonic handshakes are supposed to be so secret then how is it that non-members know what they look like?

Then I thought well, maybe the Masons is an exclusive down low club. It would not be far outside of the realm of possibility considering that we are talking about Diddy and Jay Z.

But it turns out the Masons are not a secret society of well-to-do homos at all. It’s a brotherhood of powerful men, sort of like a fraternity, who keep the power and the money within the society.

Members of the Masons are alleged to be such powerful public figures as Barack Obama, Jay Z, Sean Combs, Russell Simmons, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jackson, Ron Artest, Jamie Foxx, etc. In other words, black men with money and influence.

I Googled Masonic handshakes to see if there was anything to all of this, and what I found were examples of greetings that were difficult to distinguish from the normal handshakes, fist bumps and daps that you see brothers (and the Obamas) exchange every day. But who am I to question? I’m just repeating what I was told by the friend who has studied Masonic handshakes exhaustively.

I will do some more research on this subject and get back to you. And then again, I might not…

Information on the Web:

http://www.masonicsecrets.org/masonic-secrets.html

Photos: Wireimage/Getty