"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"
www.northjersey.com
Montclair State student admits to scratching swastikas, anti-Israel words found on campus
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.
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.
I think we all know the context this was used in. Not much we can do.