Comment on Context is for people that read US news
mathemachristian@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days agoI love how the main defense is “bro we all are so ignorant about history that we don’t know one of the most recognizable symbols of the nazis, but trust, we can definitely tell this guy isn’t one”
irish_link@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I think you’re missing my point. And YES, I just told you it wasn’t part of my history lessons. Are you based in the U.S.? If so, eastern, western, north, south, midwest? They all have different types of history being taught in school. For example, in the southeast there was a much bigger unit on trail of tears than in the Midwest. Also I bet if I asked you the name of the fertility statue from the Paleolithic you wouldn’t know it because it wasn’t part of your history lessons. Clearly that version of the totenkopf image was part of your history lessons or part of your history.
If you asked me what skull a bones together mean I would have said pirates and I would have been right because that’s the version of totenkopf I know. As I have now done a quick read on Wikipedia I must disagree with you about it be one of the most recognized symbols. How can it be one of the more recognized symbols if the main use was in concentration camps. They weren’t flying it all over or even putting it on all the uniforms. So yes, please accept that many people don’t know it.
Also no I didn’t say “ohh no this guy is totally not a nazi” but by all means put words in people’s mouth and ignore what they’re saying as it seems you do constantly. What I’m saying is most people I know, don’t know that symbol and thus can readily believe he didn’t know either. Thus the issue with pointing to it and saying “see this guys a nazi” is history lessons. If you’re going to point to shit, point to his words and comments not a tattoo.
Am I going to go dive into this guys Reddit history and learn about him, no. I will not be voting for him and I won’t be voting for his opponent. Not my area and thus I don’t need to go learn all the shit about him.
mathemachristian@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 hours ago
The bolded statement is what I take issue with. I don’t care that you personally didn’t know what the SS Totenkopf looked like. But you do now, and if you now see it tattooed on some guys chest wouldn’t that make you highly suspicious of them? Or would you think “nah they probably don’t know either”?
I think that this generalisation of “I didn’t know, so they didn’t either” is really dangerous and gives nazi’s even more plausible deniability to switch to openly fascist symbolism. I’m sorry for being so rude, and it seems like it was misdirected at you, but the amount of people that are willing to look past all these red flags (of which the Totenkopftattoo is but one) got me kind of spiraling…
It’s so well recognised that Mitchell & Webb made a comedic sketch about that skull on the radio. They later made it into a TV sketch that became even more famous as the “Hans, are we the baddies?” meme. It’s up there with the Swastika, SS runes and Sonnenrad as far as nazi symbols go.
irish_link@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Your points and observations are very well taken and I admit yes now I would be like WTF.
Your good man, that’s why we should always keep engaging with conversations and discourse. No apologies needed.
Again you are correct and have change my view on it. Accepting “they may not know” (I honestly wouldn’t put it past people like this to suggest to their entire squad to get ‘this cool skull and bones tattoo’) is a bad position and forgives people for not knowing what they are doing. And I think I read it was freaking months of not years after he was informed and fixed it. If I found out there was a symbol on my body was one of hatred and violence I would find an ink shops that very day.
I had seen it and found the skit very entertaining. However I honestly thought it was just a made up symbols akin to pirates for that skit and only recalled the skull but not the bones. (Doesn’t help that I only remembered the ‘they have skells on them’)
Not trying to be combative with this point because I think it goes with location and personal history. I know you have much more knowledge about this stuff based on how you speak about it. For me it was not a know symbol and not in the top 5. Swastika, SS, war eagle, Astra pistols (my grandfather took one off a soldier in WW2 and had it in his box, to me that was a symbol), then the black sun. Just trying to point out that other symbols were the major ones for me due to the effect they had on my upbringing.
Thanks for keeping people focused on real issues, and continuing to engage in conversations about pitfalls we can fall into by ignoring things.