• School district: Free-speech protects those in viral photo
    76 replies, posted
The chance of even half of the people in the photo being actual nazis or racists is practically nil. They do not deserve legal punishment, nor social punishment, purely and solely for this. That's absolutely stupid. It's a bunch of high schoolers doing le hitler hand movement for a meme. It's not a KKK meeting or a skinhead congregation. it's people like you that make these symbols hold true power. It's not the arm salute that's making the nazis be nazis, I can tell you that right now; it's being a racist shithead. Doing a nazi salute for a joke, no matter if you think it's a bad joke or not, will never make someone suddenly become racist.
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/172060/f4c65348-98ad-4aba-8801-2a0e2c4b0fbf/Untitled-1.png
I'm kinda disappointed that there's nobody flipping off the camera. Schools would be more likely to take action against that but if they did here then they'd look like total fucking hypocrites.
When I studied abroad in Japan, I went to a high school cultural festival with some friends. We noticed several girls with swastikas painted on their face. Obviously the symbol is seen differently there, but I still found it kind of funny.
I'd rather see Nazi salutes than dabbing tbh. Either way, I don't really care.
Your keyboard's period key broken or something? On topic, I suppose if throwing up a Nazi salute draws no repercussions, neither should doxxing the people in the photo.
I honestly don't care. They're young, they're edgy like many of those who make offensive jokes with friends. Their mistake was making it public in this political climate, but questioning their seriousness to this extent isn't very productive either.
If I had to guess? Widespread damage from global climate change, breakdown of international agreements, the rise of far-right nationalism across Europe and North America, general rise in hatecrimes, unprecedented migrant crises, continued environmental destruction, record setting hurricanes and forest fires from California to Sweden, the almost complete abdication of American diplomacy under President Trump, ceaseless aggression by Putin's Russia
This just in, literally every 17 year old who ever joked about any combination of jews, ovens, and ash is actually literally hitler.
That's reasonable and understandable outrage. These are just some students being idiots,your point?
Yeah my friends and I did stupid shit like that back then when I was in high school too. We were just doing dumb edgy shit to be funny. Nothing about this screams "Nazi's" without context. They just had the misfortune of doing it when making jokes like this is kinda risky right now because of the current political climate.
No, they actually don't. Or they shouldn't, at least. Employers should not have the right to snoop on every detail of a person's private life just because they feel like it. Unless it's something related to the law, like being a sex offender, people should have the right to not have anything show up; Europe's Right to Be Forgotten laws. Which should absolutely also be a thing in the USA, and anywhere in the worldd.
I remember going to the WW2 memorial museum in Hiroshima and I saw a Japanese dude wearing a Swastika cap lmao
I've seen enough of the "it's just a meme dude" rhetoric. It always starts out as a "haha, just joking, right guys?" until they're not joking anymore. There are social consequences to doing the nazi salute, and for good reason. Normalizing fascist imagery is dangerous. I literally spouted the n-word and made racist jokes all the time early in high school. I understand that kids are idiots with poor judgment, and that edgy ironic jokes are popular in that age range - but I also saw several friends from high school fall for fascism. It always started as a "haha, just a meme!" and morphed over time into fascist and authoritarian political beliefs. Radicalization is a process. I'm not saying that all, or most, or even any of these kids will necessarily end up supporting fascism - but it worries me that the "ironic" normalization of this kind of behavior will provide an "in" for fascist beliefs. Just like on 4chan, where "hitler did nothing wrong" was just a meme, until it wasn't, and then fascists got their own board. Nobody will "suddenly become racist" just because they raise their hand, but the process through which symbols like the nazi salute get normalized as "jokes" and "memes" allows more impressionable individuals to get sucked into the actual ideology. They should be allowed to do it, but they shouldn't be surprised when people react poorly, for the same reason you don't walk up to strangers and start making wildly racist jokes. Sure, it's just a joke, but you're still expressing shitty judgment. Even if you aren't ~really~ a racist, people will assume you are if you wander up to them and joke about how the police should be shooting more blacks so that property values can go up. This is the same shit.
I have mixed feelings about this. I don't feel people should be punished for jokes, as edgy as they might be. What's too much and what's too little? A few years ago there didn't seem to be much of an issue making fun of things like this, and by making it into an enormous monster in the closet that people want to crush and put out of view it ends up legitimizing it more than just ridiculing it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfl6Lu3xQW0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oySA2CGqa6Y We're not likely to get humor like this nowadays because of matters like these and how the media cover them. Nothing should be beyond comedy. Then again, if they really have some pretty poor misguided views, it's up to the authorities to investigate those things. Are they out rallying and chanting racist/anti-semitic things? Harassing people, like that one shitbag that harassed a poor refugee kid? Definitely punish them harshly. Are they just doing some sort of stupid joke inbetween friends? What's it matter? Are schools going to start policing thought? It's like saying you should have your racist grampa arrested for not liking [Insert racial slur of choice here] when all the old man does is sit around. I do agree that it's a matter of judgment however. There's a point at which it stops being a clear joke and then it becomes 'it's just a prank bro' tier material. Make fun of it, ridicule it, crack jokes with friends if you find it funny. Don't go out in the street shouting SIEG HEIL and doing the salute if you don't want people to think poorly of you, because nobody is going to think screaming SIEG HEIL at the top of your lungs while doing the salute out in public is a 'joke', and everyone will actually think you're a racist jerk. Good on the kid for sticking up for what he feels is right. Joke or not, some people might feel it's in poor taste, and personally while I might find a fake salute hilarious, coupled with an exagerated march and two fingers over the lip for a fake hitler moustache, some people might be offended by it and want no part in it.
I always wondered if dressing up in an IJA uniform in Asia would be the eastern equivalent to dressing up as a Nazi. Like, obviously suiting up as a WW2 era German soldier tends to turn heads here, would doing that same with a Japanese uniform produce the same effect there? Or are people less inclined to care?
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