If you’re naming a project, picking an acronym or designing a logo or icon, you should know about the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) database of hate symbols, an exhaustive list of visual symbols, numbers, phrases and acronyms used by hatemongers. Consulting it may help keep our campus a welcoming, inclusive place for all.
The 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.” For example, the okay hand gesture was used by internet trolls who ironically claimed it had been appropriated as a symbol meaning “white power.” Later, “some white supremacists seem to have abandoned the ironic or satiric intent behind the original trolling campaign and used the symbol as a sincere expression of white supremacy.”
As the ADL points out in their database entry, context is key. The symbol is often “entirely innocuous and harmless.” It appears in many contexts, where it’s used to:
- Comprise word parts in American Sign Language
- Indicate that all is well when used by scuba divers
- Symbolize the “mundra” or inner perfection, in yoga
Another example, a symbol well known to players of the classic Zelda video game series, the Triforce, a triangle containing a smaller inverted triangle, bears an unfortunate similarity to a symbol now associated with the KKK.
We all are fond of our acronyms, just as we also want those seeing and hearing them to feel safe and respected. The ADL database is a tool to help us make thoughtful and inclusive choices.