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FYI: The ADL has compiled a Hate Symbols database

Hate on Display™ Hate Symbols Database:”this database provides an overview of many of the symbols most frequently used by a variety of white supremacist groups and movements, as well as some other types of hate groups.”

Note the disclaimer at the bottom of the page:

All the symbols depicted here must be evaluated in the context in which they appear. Few symbols represent just one idea or are used exclusively by one group. For example, the Confederate Flag is a symbol that is frequently used by white supremacists but which also has been used by people and groups that are not racist. Similarly, other symbols in this database may be significant to people who are not extreme or racist. The descriptions here point our significant multiple means but may not be able to relay every possible meaning of a particular symbol.


4 thoughts on FYI: The ADL has compiled a Hate Symbols database

  1. Sincere thanks for this. Hospitality facilities get way too many tattooed hellions and this will assist in excluding dangerous individuals. I will pass this on to the Indians in the business; they are routinely threatened and slandered by racists.

  2. I feel like the swastika might have been a better example to use as a “Might not mean what you think it means” than the Confederate flag, since as far as I know (IANAH – I Am Not A Historian) the swastika was appropriated from Buddhist symbolism (and thus would have an ENTIRELY different meaning in some contexts) but the confederate flag was created as a symbol of the antebellum south in the context of states fighting to own slaves, and thus exists solely in that context (no matter how much people would like to say it represents “Southern Pride” – yeah, pride in a time and place where people were really into owning people).

    1. I expect that section’s been tailored to a USA audience, who generally don’t display a marked awareness of Buddhist symbology. I agree that the confederate flag is a problematic (yet unavoidable) example. I’m sure that many of the people in the South who proudly wave it are doing so in an unreflective way that focuses more on inherited anti-Yankee sentiment regarding the so-called “War Of Northern Aggression”, but that doesn’t negate any of the points you make, Andie, about its inextricable connection to an ideology based on perpetuating slavery.

    2. on the third page:

      “The swastika is an ancient symbol used in many cultures that was adopted by Adolf Hitler and turned into a symbol of hatred. Since then, the swastika has become perhaps the most notorious hate symbol in Western culture.”

      (by the way, it was, I believe initially a Hindu symbol, the a buddhist one but IANAH either)

      Seriously though, no one uses the Nazi style swastika to mean ANYTHING but “what you think it means” and I would have along think before buying the excuse of anyone who wears a swastika and claims they are doing so for ancient heraldic reasons.

      However, if this is Andie who used to post here from Canada, I will stipulate that the town of Swastika ontario, does fit in that category, so I’m keeping that in mind as this sort of comment usually causes me quite a bit of offence.

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