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Comment by rrwo | Hacker News Reader

The symbol is going to be associated with nazis so long as nazis keep using it, and people in the west (especially for places and people affected by the nazis) will find it offensive.

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Yeah. Any talk of “reclamation” isn’t going to work very well as long as actual nazis are around and using the symbol. People are welcome to try, of course, but to act like victims when they’re politely asked to hide the symbols is hypocritical.

Such symbols have been used way before the Nazis and are still present in Asian societies today. What’s hypocritical is being woke about issues like this then denying the culture and heritage of others. These people shouldn’t have to modify their cultures to accommodate the inability of westerners to distinguish the semantics of this symbol. To describe these people as “acting the victim” is seriously bordering on racism. The world does not revolve around the west.

So foreigners don’t need to respect the local cultures at all? They can fly the most offensive symbols and say “well in my home country it’s fine” and then play victim when everyone around them is like “hey, take it down a notch”?

Give me a break. Pure hypocrisy. It’s not racism to have basic decency.

I do not disagree that when in rome, act as romans do. However, your original comment did not specify a context like the one you're stating now. If so, my point still holds, generally speaking. And again, they are not hypocrites or playing the victim; people have cultures of their own and are able to semantically distinguish what these symbols ought to mean in different context. I live in an Asian country that has been involved in the second world war, stories about the atrocities of the nazis and the imperial japanese army still survive through our grandparents and educational curriculums. We also have schools that bear the symbol of the swastika. Yet all of us are able to discern the difference in semantics when it comes to that symbol. The case here being that we can respect the culture of others by not intentionally conflating two completely different things together, the only reason for which is because you think your culture is the only one that matters, which is what I meant by "bordering on racism". Your reply, as with your original comment, willingly conflates two completely different meanings of the swastika symbol. In fact, the symbols are not even identical (one is a rotation of the other). With that, the only hypocrisy I'm observing here is your view that your culture is the only one that matters. Once again, the world does not revolve around the west.

The assumed context was the article, which specifically states it’s about Asians living in the West. I wasn’t assuming the West is the only culture that matters, just that the West was the specific culture under discussion. When it comes to what’s okay to fly in America, I think it’s fine to say “no swastikas or reversed swastikas”.

It's not being "woke" at all. Usually "woke" people are accused of accommodating other cultures to the detriment of "Western" culture. But here you're using it to criticize Westerners for not accommodating another culture.

Most westerners find the symbol offensive, so the symbol should not be publicly displayed in western countries.

Yes, the world does not revolve around the west. But when you live somewhere, you should respect the local culture, be it in "the west" or anywhere else.

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