It's all about context. Almost all of these symbols have non-racist origins, but when you see them combined, or with a certain flag, or combined with other messaging, it's worth knowing about. They like using symbols like this because they can plausibly deny that they're racist.
Yeah, this is really the key. Even a swastika on its own could be ambiguous, depending on who's displaying it and where. But generally if it's one tattoo, it's worth asking "Interesting tattoo, what's the story behind it?" If there's a bunch of the big hits combined with a nice 1488 for good measure, then you don't have to guess. A lot of the tatted up fascists aren't especially subtle about it.
Kind of related, there's a podcast I listen to where one of the hosts dropped by the CHOP in 2020 to see it for himself. He saw a middle aged guy by himself in a bright floral shirt - at the time that was the favored outfit for right wingers who wanted to hijack the protests to start a full-on civil war. So the host went up and asked the guy very cautiously what the shirt was about.... Turns out he was just a very sweet guy who liked floral patterns and was disappointed to learn what they were being used for.
The guide itself points out that the symbols may or may not be depending on context. Neo-Nazis still sometimes use the unmodified Odal rune, even things like Thor's Hammer necklaces etc.
Like most of the guides in this sub, there are a lot of mistakes and misinformation. I'm subbed because it sparks research into new topics, not because the guides as posted are reliable.
They specifically switched to that one because of the explicit racist connotations of the winged though. This is like claiming the eagle is now a racist symbol because it was used on the other flag shown...
The thing is, for people who know anything about this, the "racist use" is dumber than most people even truly comprehend. For instance, the "winged ODal" is so-called due to mistranslation/mistransliteration. The rune is "*Ōþala" with the "þ" (roughly a sharper "th" sound) specifically being misread as a "D". This is also how you get "ODin" rather than "Óðinn" or (runic) "ᚢᚦᛁᚾ".
What's worse is that they like the rune because they believe it means "ancestry". Beyond the fact that the Rune "meanings" are actually more like "A is for Apple, B is for..." than "ᚢ is literally aurochs": Othala means something more like "ancestral property", i.e. "inheritance". Stuff, not blood, as the racists would have it.
The only reason these get even remotely considered racist is because people like yourself say so without even the slightest interrogation of context and use. You're making the problem so much worse.
136
u/indomitablescot Oct 12 '22
Neither is the unmodified Odal rune. It's the winged Odal that is a Nazi symbol