No ADL, Anti-Police Symbols Aren't Hate Speech
So, even if you ignore everything the ADL explicitly says about Israel or Zionism, it's still not a reliable source on hate speech.
Did you know that nestled among the 14 words, the swastika, and the burning cross, the ADL lists ACAB as a hate symbol?
And here's the justification given for the classification:
The acronym ACAB stands for "All Cops Are Bastards" and is a slogan of long standing in the skinhead subculture. Because non-racist skinheads (including "traditional" skinheads and anti-racist skinheads) may use this acronym as well as racist skinheads, it should be carefully judged in the context in which it appears.Now, here's the problem with this justification: something doesn't become a hate symbol merely due to an association or even use by racists or other types of hate groups. If a nazi draws a smiley face that doesn't, in and of itself, make smiley faces 'hate symbols'. If a nazi hates corporate CEO's, that doesn't make CEO bashing hate speech. Similarly, a racist using 'ACAB' doesn't make that abbreviation hate speech.
What makes a symbol hate speech is if the group it is directed at is oppressed by the group using it. This is why words like 'cracker' aren't hate speech--because white people aren't oppressed by black people. Similarly, cops are an oppressor group in our society, which means a word like ACAB simply is not and cannot be hate speech and in fact the insinuation that it can be is in and of itself intensely racist given how cops uphold racism in our society.
There's a lot more I could say about the ADL's classification of this symbol, but I lack the time to elaborate, so I hope this makes clear how deeply insidious this inclusion is.
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