It's important to be clear

Kkk
laughing in Brazilian.

- Different country, this is a Dutch tradition. As a Dutch man, this shit is racist as hell and they know it. Anyone who still adores black Pete or dons the blackface is a racist motherfucker.
  
  Why do they do that shit??
  
  Nothing prepared me for this when I moved from the US to NLD. My first year I was so shocked. One Sunny Bergman documentary later (Zwart Als Roet) and I was vindicated. Nuts that it still goes on. Ongeloofelijk (unbelievable)!
  
  Kohl-pech-raben-schwarz as it goes in one german story about saint nicolas, not just black but kohl-pech-raben-schwarz. Black-black-black-black-black :3
  
  6 to 8 did you say??
- My "niggas!" Oh shit....wait

KKK stole the outfit from earlier Christian rituals.
- White supremacists stole from another culture? Shocking, that's never happened before
  
  It's their culture too, Americans didn't spontaneously generate as a colony. These outfits are from Europe.
  The funny thing is that they had periods where they hated Catholics almost as much as their other targets while pretending to be a holy order of Catholic knights. They were literally the exact same kind of Christo-fascist as modern neo-crusaders but wouldn't let Catholics in.
  
  For some reason, I'm thinking of the scene in Django Unchained where the guy is griping that his wife worked hard on this!
- Specifically Catholic. It’s a great example of appropriation.
- Supremacists always appropriate things. Ok symbol, sacred numbers/symbols, clothing, words, deities, and twist it to exclude.
  
  Because fascists have no creativity.
  As a general rule at least... I guess you can end up with a Leni Riefenstahl every now and then, but for the most part, if you were a good artist at the time in Germany, you were a target. And I guess one could call Josef Mengele "creative" if you remove all positive connotations from the word.
  
  Yep. There are still swastikas all over Korea because it's been associated with Buddhists for far longer than Hitler who appropriated it. Freaks out visiting westerners, though.
  
  Conservatives are incapable of original thought. Every joke they have and every insult they sling is just something they heard from a leftist, bastardized.
  
  Everybody appropriates.
  This language that you are speaking is appropriated from a bunch of other languages and cultures.
- So just a slightly different flavor.
  
  To give some context, originally a ‘nazareno’ is somebody paying penitence for sins committed since last years Easter. Part of their ‘penitence’ is to march in procession covered with those robes. The ‘capirote’ (the hood) is intended to keep those sinners (that could be important or well known people) anonymous.
  I’m not sure if this is still valid today or if it’s now just a performance. Someone from the south of Spain will more about that than myself.
- So annoying. Same with swastika.

haha they look like candles

And this means A-Okay, not whatever the hell nazis decided.
Incidentally, if you're one of the people who changed from this to a thumbs-up to make sure nobody thought you were evil, the thumbs-up gesture in Australia means "up yours". Morally perfect hand gestures aren't easy.
- Iirc, wasn't this made a white supremisist symbol specifically after people jokingly or mistakenly called it one?
  Like, it was a perfectly okay hand gesture, then some dude on 4chan said it's a racist symbol (Maybe joking maybe not) some people bought into it and real racists started using it as a calling card?
  Correct me if I'm wrong.
  
  My understanding of the event:
  4chan jokes they should pretend the okay hand sign is a white supremacist dog whistle to trigger libs.
  They do and it works.
  Online shitters who's whole personality is "triggering sjw's" pick up on this and perpetuate the joke to continue to trigger people.
  Basically people getting mad at a joke caused it to become a real thing to some degree. While not a supremacist symbol it was heavily used by them for a time.
- Australian here. Sorry that's not a thing. Maybe if you gestured the thumbs up in a particular way? (Usually moving your whole arm up and of towards your shoulder? Honestly hard to explain in text). But that's kind of a whole new gesture, not a thumbs up.
  Don't be afraid of doing the thumbs up here, we all do it and know what it means.
  
  Admittedly my info is a couple decades old. When my college friends studying in Australia tried to hitchhike with their thumbs, drivers angrily returned the gesture. They were later informed that it meant "up yours" and that the correct way was to point an index finger toward where they wanted to go. Maybe years of Americans visiting have changed this.
  Funny thing from an Australian friend who moved to Seattle where I live - we used to have a restaurant called Dag's that served "Dag-burgers". She said to her "dags" were little balls of shit clinging to a sheep's fur. She sent home a photo of herself by the sign and her relatives thought it was hysterical.
- I never used it to begin with. It was always some old-timey gesture I only ever saw in media. The first time I did see it in person, it was used in a "Made you look and now I get to slap you upside the head" sort of game.
- Unless you flash it below your waist, then it means you can punch them if they see it
  
  How tf did this ever become a thing
  Like I know obviously it's just a funny excuse to punch your friend the same way a VW Beetle is but like,
  "make a ring with your fingers and hold it near your dick and then call for your friend's attention and then when he gives you attention, proving that he's a good friend that listens to you, laugh at him and then punch him in the kidney"
  Does this not seem insane to anyone else, I have to know the etymology of this but I don't know how to look it up
  
  Only if it’s upside down, above the knee, and not if they put a finger through it without breaking eye contact
- Apparently, in Spain thumbs up means someone "horned" you, betrayed you with someone else.
  
  Uh, no. The ‘devil horn’ sign, aka heavy metal salute DOES mean that. Thumbs up is just ‘thumbs up’ (it’s an imported/borrowed sign, as far as ai know)
- That means 0 and no one can convince me otherwise
  
  No it's 3

I was in Spain a few years ago, and decided against certain mementos for this reason. Sorry, it may not be KKK, but I won't display a whirling log in my house for similar reasons..
- What’s with the log?
- I got a wonderful Buddhist hanging charm for my car with a nice big 卍 (wàn) on it and you better believe I don't give a fig what people are gonna think about that!
  
  You absolutely need to have a prop to represent Buddha's heart and mind hanging from your rear view mirror to achieve nirvana?
  I'm not a Buddhist, but that don't seem like the path...

I got my own little guy I bought as a souvenir in Malaga during Semana Santa (Holy Week) 2013
I call him Miguel

I saw the processions for Semana Santa a few years ago in Madrid. My girlfriend knew I hadn't seen this before and didn't tell me just so she could see my reaction.
I was fairly shocked, and asked her what the craic with that was.
She explained the KKK stole the look, and this celebration outdates the KKK by many years.
- Probably centuries.

not KKK
That is exactly what ... well, what a KKK member would never actually say, so it's legit.

In Spain they are called Nazarenos and are integral to the easter ceremonies of Semana Santa.
- Hilarious that the name starts with Naz...
  
  Nazgul?
  
  Also Seman Santa lul
  I'm a child
  
  As in Nazereth. People from Nazareth.
  
  Not really

Didn’t the KKK get their aesthetic sensibility from various medieval/early-modern religious paramilitary organisations like the Spanish Inquisition and the Holy Vehm?
- Like all regressive movements, they're incapable of original thought and constantly steal aesthetic from others. Yes.
  
  To be fair, christianity is a medley of ancient and medieval cultures and stories.
  
  If you create brand new symbols then nobody knows what yr talking about. Borrowing other people's symbols is really the only way to be understood.