So I grew up in Canada, on the west coast, basically Vancouver. So I’m well aware of the dog-whistles. I now live in Scotland. There was an event where I work recently, and the event contractors were 88 Events. And immediately I was like: FUCKIN NAZIS!
My wife seems to think that they’re too…idk…girly? to be nazis, but where the fuck did 88 come from, they started up in 97, so couldn’t be that. I feel like I’m being fuckin paranoid, but the fascy bastards are coming out the woodworks lately…shrugs
Well shit. I missed the history link in their about us page. Seems like that really is very unfortunate. Maybe I should email them and mention that 88 is a dog-whistle?
It couldn’t hurt tbh. Maybe provide some sources of other major Hitler 88 sympathizers. Worst case scenario they don’t care and best case they change their name, maybe they’ll publicly support lgbt with flags or what have you in order to show they’re not dog whistling.
I live in Vancouver but didn’t grow up here. I know of the 88->HH dog whistle, and um 14 words or something like that but are there any others I ought to keep my kids away from?
I don’t know if it’s used in your Region but in Germany 444 is used by neonazis to represent “Deutschland den Deutschen” -> “Germany to the Germans”. Maybe there are alliterations like that in your region?
Also, there are certain clothing labels popular in these circles. Lonsdale for example can be worn to only show the “nsda” part as a reference to the NSDAP. There are other examples too.
But don’t take this as something to freak out about. Keep an open dialogue with your kids, the best way to make sure they don’t turn into a racist, fascist or criminal…is to be as big a part of their life as you can without trying to control them. Talk to them about especially the history of racism in Canada, the concerted effort to wipe out First Nations identity and people, and bring them to as many different cultural events as you can. These movements thrive on the Us and Them mentality, if you can teach them that we’re all just people, that our similarities outweigh our differences, and that we’re culturally healthier with many different people… Well, that’ll go a long way.
Facebook (Fuck them, I’m not calling it Meta, its stupid) does do something, though.
It actively encourages it, because right wing extremists are a big chunk of their revenue. Since right wing extremists are more engaged (obsessed) than anyone else, and click more ads than anyone else.
Right wing extremists are the honey pot.
Which is why regular people can get banned for the most ridiculous of shit, yet right wing racists doesnt get banned even when posting terrorist threats, death threats, or racial slurs.
and honestly, its not just facebook. Its all social media.
Except walking around with a calculator that says 80085 isn’t telling several parts of the population that you want them dead and aren’t afraid to say it
Don’t underestimate fascists. Bigotry is pretty ignorant, but these people do what they do for a reason. Dog whistles allow them to find each other, but claim plausible deniability about their affiliation.
Like every single person you encounter who insists on writing “friends” as “frens” will tell you that they are just being cutesy, but everyone in-the-know understands that it means “Far Right EthnoNationalist”. Bring that up, they they throw their hands up and act like you’re crazy. If you’re one of them, you’ve found your people. If you’re not, they will gaslight you while insisting that you’re just looking for reasons to be offended.
People will use 14/88, “kek”, “OK” hand signs, and other little things that you can just write off as innocuous without much push back, but it’s all just a way of networking with each other. “Virtue Signalling” as they call it.
Calling someone who is stupid stupid isn’t ableism stupid people deserve to be insulted they make a choice of being stupid.
There’s a difference between stupid and unintelligent. Unintelligent is just a limit on one’s intelligence but a stupid person is a stupid person by choice
Unless there are other things on the car that can support this, we can’t simply draw any conclusion. 88 also means good fortune in Chinese culture. By OP’s premise, there are lots of Nazis in my country.
The goalposts to being a nazi got moved farther back because “we can’t know their intent from just this license plate” and then 2 seconds later, the goalposts for being a nazi was moved way forward because “everyone who says good luck in Chinese is a Nazi.”
Yes, that’s literally moving the goalposts on what defines a Nazi.
Moving the goalposts means changing the rules of a debate while having it. They said they’d agree with them being a Nazi if there was evidence beyond the number 88 being on the license plate, someone else pointed out what the “BOOG” meant, they accepted that the person who owns the car is a Nazi. No goalposts moved.
I think you should be cautious of just how much faith you’re putting into this person.
They said they’d agree
They didn’t. They only gave reasons to not agree. They implied that they would agree if that condition was met, but that’s not what they said.
they accepted that the person who owns the car is a Nazi
Again, they didn’t. They said, “I missed that,.my bad.” They didn’t change anything about their argument from this information (that was always available to them), just acknowledged that they didn’t use it.
Maybe I should’ve called their argument a strawman argument instead, but the discrepancy between what they say OP can call a Nazi and what they can call a Nazi feels wide enough to change the rules of the debate for each side.
Yes, I simplified for the sake of brevity. But you’re reading a lot into their comments that just isn’t there. Yes they were running interference for a nazi (and not making a particularly compelling case) but there’s nothing to indicate it was intentional. (It’s not a strawman argument either btw, unless you’re claiming they intentionally ignored the boogaloo reference rather than just not knowing about them.)
Edit: Also I don’t think not making assumptions about someone’s motivations is the same thing as ‘putting faith’ in them.
You admit that they were running interference for a nazi, but also want to give them the benefit of the doubt? Historians have a word for people who didn’t agree fully with, but still defended nazis. Want to know what they were called?
Nazis.
If you’re aligning yourself with them, running interference for them, I’m going to treat you as if it is intentional because the effect is the exact same. If it was an accident, there were plenty of opportunities to change opinions and apologize. That hasn’t happened, so all evidence we have points to the person defending Nazis being disingenuous here.
You have to make assumptions on people’s motivations either way. I’m just more willing to base my assumptions on how genuine someone is being whether or not they are running interference for Nazis.
No, you’re not basing your assumptions on how genuine someone is being, you’re basing your assumptions on your assumptions of how genuine they’re being.
Dismissing someone’s arguments by establishing they’re acting in bad faith is a valid rhetorical tactic but it doesn’t work if you can’t establish that. And labeling their argument as something it isn’t doesn’t help with that.
Addressing someone’s presumed ignorance is helpful because you’re also providing information for onlookers, pointing out the harmful effects of what someone’s saying (like potentially muddying the waters when it comes to recognizing dog whistles) is constructive, attacking anyone who may be acting in bad faith but could just as easily just be ignorant is just a waste of your energy.
I’m not particularly interested in defending the person you replied to, I don’t think they made a good case either. I just want people to be a bit more discerning with the terms they use. (And I have a compulsive need to correct people which I’m aware is really annoying.)
I don’t care if they’re being genuine or not and don’t feel a need to prove it one way or the other. I will treat anyone who is defending Nazis as if they are genuinely Nazis themselves because at the end of the day, that’s what they’re pushing for, intentionally or not.
The damage this can cause does not change if it was intentional or not, so our reaction to it should not change either.
Their initial comment was complete nonsense, and sarcastic derision is one of the few things that actually upsets people like that who ignore the content of the conversation while also pretending to have the moral high ground. Their point is often to get people arguing amongst themselves instead of realizing they just shifted the conversation from “Here is a Nazi in Indiana” to “You can’t prove that Chinese speakers aren’t Nazis.” (Like we’re doing now.)
What would you have called them out for that fits better than moving goalposts or a strawman argument?
If you’re dead set on assigning a name to it I’d say they’re making an irrelevant conclusion, the basic facts are correct but they do not apply to the situation at hand.
But asian descent is roughly 3% of people in Indiana. People of mixed descent are 2.4%.
I assume with that attitude of yours, You can read my source and also recognize it’s remarkably unlikely that an Asian person would be driving a car with those plates; particularly since the first part is also part of the reference.
The point being, context matters. There are far, far more white nationalists in Indiana than there are Chinese-Americans.
I’m not sure if you are asking me if I’m being sarcastic or if you’re confused if you want to be sarcastic? Are you implying sarcastically that Kia’s are better than American brands like Ford/Chevrolet/GM?
I’m driving a Kia Forte made in Mexico, same as my old Chevy Cavalier was, so it’s barely even foreign fwiw. It’s an okay car, hope it stays that way for a few more years.
It just occurred to me how absolutely accurate it is that the cops are holding the line defending the small number of Nazis from the counter-protestors. They also have that cop who hates the Nazis just like everyone else, but he’s still doing his job keeping everyone back, which is also pretty accurate.
Back in the reddit days I was pretty active on the Back to the Future subreddits, and one day an excited young man posted his new BTTF tattoo; a big colorful depiction of the 88 from the time machine’s famous digital speedometer, glowing orange numbers on a black background, in a very visible spot on his arm.
I sent him a DM to the effect of “I get what you’re doing as a BTTF fan, but you should be aware that if you’re not a white supremacist there’s a good chance that tattoo can be gravely misinterpreted by people who see it out in the world” and linked this page on the number’s use as a hate symbol. He replied with an “OMG, I had no idea! Thanks for telling me!” message, deleted the tattoo post, and soon afterward deleted his whole reddit presence. I sometimes still wonder about that guy and how he’s managed.
