After reading about the recent rise in extremist and anti-government groups across America, I was inspired to do a post about the symbols of such groups.
As stated in a previous post, everyone needs a way of identifying themselves. Unfortunately, identifiers are sometimes used to evoke feelings of fear and hate. Below are some examples of images that do just that.
Neo-Nazi
The swastika was adopted by Germany’s Nazi Party. Prior to the Nazis co-opting this symbol, it was known as a good luck symbol and was used by various religious groups. Hitler made the Nazi swastika unique to his party by reversing the normal direction of the symbol so that it appeared to spin clockwise. Today, it is widely used, in various incarnations, by neo-Nazis, racist skinheads and other white supremacist groups.
Aryan Nations
A neo-Nazi, Christian Identity organization led by Richard Butler and based in Hayden Lake, Idaho. Aryan Nations is also known as the Church of Jesus Christ Christian. Christian Identity is a racist religion that teaches that whites (“Aryans”) are descended from the Lost Tribes of Israel and are thus God’s chosen people; also that Jews are descendants of Satan and non-whites are soulless “mud peoples.”
Ku Klux Klan
According to the Klan, the blood drop represents the blood shed by Jesus Christ as a sacrifice for the White Aryan Race. The KKK originated as a secret society organized in the South after the American Civil War to reassert white supremacy through terrorism and intimidation.
Posse Comitatus
The Posse Comitatus was an anti-government movement active in the 1970s and 1980s, many of whose leaders were Christian Identity adherents, and whose ideology formed the basis of later groups such as the Montana Freemen. The Posse died away in the late 1980s but former Posse leader James Wickstrom restarted it in the 1990s solely as a white supremacist group, shedding most of the Posse’s pseudolegal theories.
Creativity Movement (formerly known as the World Church of the Creator)
The white supremacist organization led by Matthew Hale and based in East Peoria, Illinois defines itself as a religion established for the “survival, expansion, and advancement of [the] White Race exclusively.”
Skinhead
Alludes to the Aryan or White Power Fist. The letters “S-K-I-N” tattooed on the fingers is currently popular among racist skinheads.
The images and descriptions shown above were taken from the Anti-Defamation League website. Visit their website for more symbols and their meanings.
