Hate on Display™ Hate Symbols Database

This database provides an overview of many of the symbols most frequently used by white supremacist groups and movements, as well as a variety of other groups and movements. It is one of ADL's many resources related to signs, symbols and codes which also include an antizionist hate resource, a coded hate resource and the memetic violence field guide.

All the symbols depicted here must be evaluated in the context in which they appear. Few symbols represent just one idea or are used exclusively by one group. For example, 100% is often used as an amount or an expression and it is also used by some by some white supremacists as shorthand for "100% white." Similarly, other symbols in this database may be significant to people who are not extreme or racist. The descriptions here point out significant multiple meanings but may not be able to relay every possible meaning of a particular symbol.

233 Results

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Never Lose Your Smile

Hate Symbol

“Never Lose Your Smile” is a phrase that, when joined with the Totenkopf skull, is used as an in-joke or reference by white supremacists.

Alternate Names: NLYS

Never Lose Your Smile is a design/meme consisting of the phrase “Never Lose Your Smile” accompanied by the Totenkopf skull image or, more commonly, merely the bottom half of that skull, which obscures its true nature and thus allows the image to pass unnoticed as a white supremacist symbol. The deceptive nature of this design has also allowed extremists to sell clothing, patches, and other items featuring the image on major internet platforms without triggering moderation.

Some Never Lose Your Smile images may also contain the colors or designs of national flags. Other variations use Totenkopf imagery with a slightly different phrase, such as “Never Lose Your Love” or “Never Lose Your Hope.”

Some white supremacists have also used the phrase alone, without the skull, in circumstances such as screen names. However, use of the phrase by itself without a clear white supremacist context should not be taken for granted as hate-related.

White supremacists likely borrowed this concept from older, non-extremist designs that combined the phrase with non-Totenkopf skull images. Use of the “Never Lose Your Smile” slogan in combination with generic skulls or other non-white supremacist images, such as generic clowns, should not be considered hate related.

New Aryan Empire

Hate Symbol

The New Aryan Empire is an Arkansas-based white supremacist prison gang. Its most common symbols consist of its initials, NAE, as well as the number 234 (in either Latin or Roman numeral forms).

New Black Panther Party

Hate Symbol

The New Black Panther Party for Self Defense (not related to the original Black Panther Party) is the most extreme organized racist and antisemitic African-American group in the United States. Its symbol consists of a leaping panther (an image appropriated from the original Black Panthers) superimposed over the continent of Africa.

No Race Mixing

Hate Symbol

White supremacists fear and hate the concept of multiracial couples, relationships or families, believing that such relationships "pollute" the "pure" white race. As a result, a fairly common white supremacist symbol depicts a multiracial couple or family, with a red circle/bar superimposed over the depiction, indicating that such relationships ought to be prohibited. Additional Images:

Non Silba Sed Anthar

Hate Symbol

ALTERNATE NAMES: NSSANon Silba Sed Anthar is a Ku Klux Klan slogan intended to mean "Not Self, But Others." It looks like Latin but is a mix of Latin and Gothic. Occasionally it appears in acronym form as NSSA. The phrase is one of many phrases, codes and rituals developed by the Second Ku Klux Klan in the early 20th century. The Second Klan did not survive, but later Klan groups adopted many of its trappings. This is one of the more commonly used Klan slogans. Additional Images:

ALTERNATE NAMES: NSSA

Noose

Hate Symbol

The hangman's noose has come to be one of the most powerful visual symbols directed against African-Americans, comparable in the emotions that it evokes to that of the swastika for Jews. Its origins are connected to the history of lynching in America, particularly in the South after the Civil War, when violence or threat of violence replaced slavery as one of the main forms of social control that whites used on African-Americans. The noose quickly became associated with the Ku Klux Klan. …

Northwest American Republic

Hate Symbol

The "Northwest American Republic" is a fictional construct created by Harold Covington, a long-time fringe figure in the neo-Nazi movement. It is based on the so-called "Northwest Imperative," a longstanding call by some white supremacists for White people to move to the Pacific Northwest and establish their own country.

Not Equal

Hate Symbol

Some white supremacists have adopted the mathematical sign "≠" (Not Equal or Not Equal To) as a white supremacist symbol. The use of this symbol is an attempt to claim that different races are not equal to each other (and to imply that the White race is superior).

ALTERNATE NAMES: Unequal, Not Equal To

Noticer

Hate Symbol

“Noticer” is a term used by online antisemites to refer to themselves, signifying that they are aware of what they believe are nefarious activities committed by Jews.

NSM Legacy Logos

Hate Symbol

The National Socialist Movement (NSM) is a longstanding neo-Nazi group that has changed its logo several times during its existence. Older versions of its logo can still be found on clothing, printed materials, and even tattoos.

OFOF

Hate Symbol

OFOF is an acronym for the slogan "One Front, One Family," utilized primarily by the white supremacist group Volksfront.

ALTERNATE NAMES: One Front One Family

Ohio Aryan Brotherhood

Hate Symbol

The Ohio Aryan Brotherhood is a longstanding white supremacist prison gang based in the Ohio prison system. Despite its name, it is an independent group and has no connection to the "original" Aryan Brotherhood, based primarily in the California and federal prison systems.

Okay Hand Gesture

Hate Symbol

A common hand gesture that a 4chan trolling campaign claimed in 2017 had been appropriated as a symbol meaning "white power." Used by many on the right--not just extremists--for the purpose of trolling liberals, the symbol eventually came to be used by actual white supremacists as well. Caution must be used in evaluating instances of this symbol's use.

Oklahoma Aryan Brotherhood

Hate Symbol

The Oklahoma Aryan Brotherhood is one of several white supremacist prison gangs in the Oklahoma prison system whose name derives from the unrelated "original" Aryan Brotherhood, which is based in the California and federal prison systems. Its patch is a shield on top of two lightning bolts and a sword, with a clover, a swastika, and SS bolts inside the shield.

ORION

Hate Symbol

ALTERNATE NAMES: Our Race Is Our Nation"Our Race Is Our Nation" or "ORION" is a racist slogan proclaiming that racial ties are paramount to all else, transcending national borders or boundaries. Within the United States, for example, a white supremacist might use it to suggest that he or she owes allegiance to his or her race, rather than to the United States itself. In an international context, white supremacists use it to suggest that all "white" people, from Europe or the United States or…

ALTERNATE NAMES: Our Race Is Our Nation

O-Slash Hitler Salute

Hate Symbol

The o-slash Hitler salute is a typographical symbol or emoticon used to abstractly depict someone giving a Nazi or fascist salute.

Othala Rune

Hate Symbol

ALTERNATE NAMES: Othal Rune, Othila Rune, Odal Rune, Norse RuneThe othala rune is part of the runic alphabet system, a system of writing used (with many variations) across pre-Roman Europe. In the 20th century, Nazis in Germany adopted the othal rune, among many other similar symbols, as part of their attempt to reconstruct a mythic "Aryan" past. Nazi uses of the symbol included the divisional insignia of two Waffen SS divisions during World War II. Following World War II, white supremacists…

ALTERNATE NAMES: Othal Rune, Othila Rune, Odal Rune, Norse Rune

Paraglider

Hate Symbol

Some supporters of the 2023 Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel have adopted paraglider imagery to celebrate the attacks, as Hamas operatives used gliders to land in Israel to commit violent acts.

Patriot Front

Hate Symbol

The Patriot Front is a white supremacist group in the United States that uses a fasces and a circle of 13 stars as its logo, often placed on top of the image of an eagle.

Peckerwood

Hate Symbol

ALTERNATE NAMES: Wood, Woodpile, PWThe word "peckerwood" originated as an African-American slang term for "woodpecker" in the 1800s, but by the early 1900s began to be applied as a racial epithet against whites, with a meaning similar to the term "white trash." In the second half of the 20th century, in prison environments in Texas, California, and possibly elsewhere, the word peckerwood, originally used to refer to white prisoners generally, began to develop a more specific association with…

ALTERNATE NAMES: Wood, Woodpile, PW

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