"The student, who identifies as Jewish, stated that he thought placing the swastikas on campus would compel the University to take action in support of the campus Jewish community"
"The student, who identifies as Jewish, stated that he thought placing the swastikas on campus would compel the University to take action in support of the campus Jewish community"
The Montclair State University president said the student who reported the incident later admitted to scratching the words and images.
Hakenkreuz, not Swastika. Stop letting the symbolism of peace be appropriated by forces of hate. Willfully choosing to accept this as the symbol of hate means that you're not willing to normalize it, at the cost of other cultures having to suffer, even if they had nothing to do with the Holocaust.
In the US, neonazis fuck up the symbol so often that it makes no sense to differentiate between the two. I don't even think most neonazis know there's a difference.
I don't think you're going to get rid of that symbolic appropriation either. Once you see a family member murdered by someone carrying a symbol, you're never going to see that symbol the same again. A trauma has been fused to it.
Normally I would play devils advocate and agree with you, but when someone explicitly draws/presents a swastika as a swastika… it’s a swastika.
"Swastika" is the Sanskrit word for the symbol. Hakenkreuz ("hooked cross") is the German word for a visually similar symbol.
The Hindu meaning of the symbol is not offensive. It is the German association of the symbol with the Nazi party that is offensive.
This is the first time I've encountered an attempt at de-appropriating the term "swastika" from the Nazis, but it's not an unreasonable correction.
I think we all know the context this was used in. Not much we can do.
Interesting. So, for some reason, you think it's not a malicious attempt to call a hate symbol, which is clearly called a hooked cross or hakencruez, another word from a different part of the world where it was used in good faith by multiple Asian cultures? Why not call it a gammadion or flyfot, since it seems to be geographically closer?
Swastika (स्वस्तिक, 卐) means conducive to well-being. Swastika also has a counter-opposite symbol called sauvastika (सौवस्तिक, 卍). Both of them are not tilted. Swastika also does not come with a hooked cross on top of a white circle, behind a red background. That's just deliberate attempt at letting the appropriation of word and willful ignorance.
The Hakenkreuz was on the flag, but other swastikas were used too, and they used both orientations of the swastika.
The only thing differentiating between the Hakenkreuz and the swastika does is give Nazis plausible deniability. We can talk about letting it be a symbol of peace again when we don't have fucking Nazis actively using it all the time.