After attacks in US, extremist symbols draw scrutiny

The bowl-shaped haircut worn by the white supremacist who killed nine black worshippers in Charleston, South Carolina, stands among the most disturbing and distinctive images that extremists have shared online. Others include letters drawn from the ancient runic alphabet — a particular favourite among neo-Nazis — or slogans like “Diversity=White genocide.”

They are among the many symbols, slogans and memes that white supremacists are deploying as propaganda and which are drawing more scrutiny amid a broader effort to curtail extremist violence in the United States.

On Thursday, the Anti-Defamation League is adding 36 entries to its long-standing online catalogue of far-right symbols, many of which are built around racist stereotypes that have been spread about African Americans and Jews.

About 10 of them are the logos of extremist organisations. Several others are numeric codes that can carry hidden messages, like the numbers 109 or 110, anti-Semitic shorthand that claims that Jews have been expelled from 109 countries and that the United States should become the 110th.

Hate symbols have long historical roots, including the white hoods and the cross burnings of the Ku Klux Klan that were meant to convey both menace and power. As with most aspects of the internet age, however, these insignia now emerge at an accelerated pace and reach a far wider audience, according to experts.

“This stuff has been going on for a long time, but what you are seeing now is more of it, a more rapid evolution,” said Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a professor of education and sociology at American University who focuses on cultural aspects of far-right youth extremism.

File Photo: White nationalists participate in a “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va, Aug 12, 2017. The New York Times

The uptick in propaganda is part of the overall spread of far-right ideology and its more public face in recent years. Experts and nongovernmental organisations say that people should be more aware of symbols possibly floating in their midst, whether on the web or in real life on protest posters or T-shirts.

At the same time, they caution that such symbols serve as an imperfect indicator that someone might be drawn to violence. “It is part of the story of the rise of white extremists, but you cannot say that every person who shares one of those memes is going to end up a violent white extremist,” Miller-Idriss said.

The federal government, which has been criticised for playing down the threat from domestic white extremists, has seemed to alter its course in the wake of several recent mass shootings perpetrated by white extremists that have left dozens dead and many more wounded.

Kevin K McAleenan, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said on Friday that the attacks in El Paso, Texas, and Poway, California, as well as earlier ones in Pittsburgh and Charleston, among others, demonstrated that a growing number of actors seek to harm society and to incite more disaffected youth to violence.

“White supremacist extremism is one of the most potent ideologies driving acts of targeted violence in this country,” he said in a keynote address. Confronting it will be a new priority, he said — although critics are waiting to see how much money the government allocates to the effort.

American communities need better tools to understand such threats and to respond, McAleenan said, noting government statistics indicating that family members, friends or even bystanders had some inkling about a brewing attack in most cases.

One tool is recognising symbols used by far-right groups.

Educating the public about them constitutes part of a broader effort needed to encourage people to report indications of a potential attack, said John D Cohen, a former counterterrorism coordinator at homeland security, who now teaches security studies at Georgetown University. It also helps law enforcement understand with whom they are dealing.

“It’s all about assessing the risk of people who come to the attention of law enforcement,” he said, “and if a person is using extremist symbols or consuming or communicating extremist ideological material, those may be important indicators to consider.”

Some of them appear innocuous. The OK symbol created by touching the forefinger to the thumb, for example, is seen by extremists as forming the letters “WP,” or “white power.”

The bowl haircut of Dylann Roof, the Charleston gunman, who is often revered by extremists, is sometimes depicted by itself, mounted on a shield, and has engendered a distinct vocabulary. Admirers use screen names like “Bowltrash” or refer to “The Final Bowlution.”

In the United States, using such symbols is protected by free speech laws, but in countries with tougher laws, like Germany, the police regularly visit schools or otherwise brief the public on the latest symbols, Miller-Idriss said.

The convention of drawing on letters from the ancient runic alphabet harks back to German nationalists and particularly Nazi Germany, where it inspired the double lightning bolt logo of the SS, among other organisations. (Some such symbols are used by modern pagans and have no extremist intent.)

Kathleen Belew, a historian of white power movements with the University of Chicago, said the more fluid use of symbols had accelerated since the 1980s. Groups seeking to become more mainstream have burned giant versions of runic letters, attempting to escape the negative public image of cross burnings long revered by the Klan.

“There is a constant attempt to make this more palatable,” Belew said, “to try to figure out a way to create entry points to something that someone might otherwise find objectionable.”

One reason that experts consider such symbols an imperfect indicator of support for extremism is that not everyone who spreads them, especially young men, might be aware of the history or the potent symbolism behind them.

The use of crude humour or in-your-face materials is sometimes just a tool to attract young people, a kind of first step to drawing them into the movement. Young men trying to be offensive or provocative might share a meme because they think it is funny or cool, not because they are looking to be radicalised, Miller-Idriss said.

“They mean to provoke or offend, and the meaning can come later,” she said.

© 2019 New York Times News Service