'Waypoint' Claims Racist Logo in Destiny 2

I had never heard of this, but apparently it's either a white supremacist rallying image or an anti-white supremacist trolling image depending on what part of the internet you click through to. I initially read about it on Game Informer, but here is the original article.

- MacGyver10

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I had never heard of this, but apparently it's either a white supremacist rallying image or an anti-white supremacist trolling image depending on what part of the internet you click through to. I initially read about it on Game Informer, but here is the original article.

- MacGyver10

Yeah, I saw that at Kotaku this morning. You gotta wonder if it was an actual coincidence/accident, or if someone at Bungie was trolling?

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I had never heard of this, but apparently it's either a white supremacist rallying image or an anti-white supremacist trolling image depending on what part of the internet you click through to. I initially read about it on Game Informer, but here is the original article.

- MacGyver10

Yeah, I saw that at Kotaku this morning. You gotta wonder if it was an actual coincidence/accident, or if someone at Bungie was trolling?

That can very easily be figured out. Every edit to every asset is logged.

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I had never heard of this, but apparently it's either a white supremacist rallying image or an anti-white supremacist trolling image depending on what part of the internet you click through to. I initially read about it on Game Informer, but here is the original article.

- MacGyver10

Yeah, I saw that at Kotaku this morning. You gotta wonder if it was an actual coincidence/accident, or if someone at Bungie was trolling?

On the internet it's really hard to see the real world implications of things you do in a non serious way. I don't think most people even on 4chan who like these symbols and things understand that to some, they're not a joke. Some people mean others harm by them.

If it wasn't a coincidence (and it totally could be, the symmetry of Ks is very pleasant, and it's just some lines), I don't think it is trolling. It might just be a person who thinks some of these internet jokes are funny, and he hasn't realized how they are in the real world, and that to some people they're not jokes.

We're all nerds here; we've seen the behavior when someone brings internet memes out in real life a bunch of times before. Usually it's just cringey crap, but sometimes it can cross a line that the person didn't even know was really there, because it was online and he never picked up on that.

If it wasn't a coincidence, which is my first guess, I would definitely imagine it was just ignorance of impact of the joke flag in the real world. I would hope someone isn't trying to seriously troll people with racist ideas at Bungie.

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I had never heard of this, but apparently it's either a white supremacist rallying image or an anti-white supremacist trolling image depending on what part of the internet you click through to. I initially read about it on Game Informer, but here is the original article.

- MacGyver10

It's from the white supremacist board at 4chan, and it was found on the shields of the alt right in Charlottesville. It's also based on the design of a nazi flag. Id say it's just straight white supremacist even if it's spawned of irreverent internet stufff.

Good on bungie for their handling here

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I had never heard of this, but apparently it's either a white supremacist rallying image or an anti-white supremacist trolling image depending on what part of the internet you click through to. I initially read about it on Game Informer, but here is the original article.

- MacGyver10

It's from the white supremacist board at 4chan, and it was found on the shields of the alt right in Charlottesville. It's also based on the design of a nazi flag. Id say it's just straight white supremacist even if it's spawned of irreverent internet stufff.

Good on bungie for their handling here

I had a whole thing typed up and I accidentally lost it. Suffice it to say, the board you're talking about (/pol/) is a lot more complicated than being "the white nationalist board", the symbol itself isn't based on the Nazi flag (the flag it's often used on is however), and someone bad using a symbol doesn't make the symbol bad. Please do not view things so simply. (No I'm not defending the people that use the symbol, not that those people are even all the same.)

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I had never heard of this, but apparently it's either a white supremacist rallying image or an anti-white supremacist trolling image depending on what part of the internet you click through to. I initially read about it on Game Informer, but here is the original article.

- MacGyver10

It's from the white supremacist board at 4chan, and it was found on the shields of the alt right in Charlottesville. It's also based on the design of a nazi flag. Id say it's just straight white supremacist even if it's spawned of irreverent internet stufff.

Good on bungie for their handling here

I had a whole thing typed up and I accidentally lost it. Suffice it to say, the board you're talking about (/pol/) is a lot more complicated than being "the white nationalist board", the symbol itself isn't based on the Nazi flag (the flag it's often used on is however), and someone bad using a symbol doesn't make the symbol bad. Please do not view things so simply. (No I'm not defending the people that use the symbol, not that those people are even all the same.)

I'm fully aware of the history and population of 4Chan, /pol/ etc. I understand that much of it is just transgressive and dark play. I also don't give a fuck. If you want to joke with the white supremicist, I'm not going to give you a pass because you think breaking social norms is fun.

Also this one here

and someone bad using a symbol doesn't make the symbol bad

That's not even the argument in total, It's not because it's just used by bad people, it's also prominently used on flag designed after the nazi battle flag. The design poposfully echos a lot of fascist logos like Traditionalist workers party, American Vanguard, Nazi, Golden Dawn etc. It also

I understand the differences of these internet communities but I simpilify because that's the correct and useful definition in this situation.

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I had a whole thing typed up and I accidentally lost it. Suffice it to say, the board you're talking about (/pol/) is a lot more complicated than being "the white nationalist board", the symbol itself isn't based on the Nazi flag (the flag it's often used on is however), and someone bad using a symbol doesn't make the symbol bad. Please do not view things so simply. (No I'm not defending the people that use the symbol, not that those people are even all the same.)

I'm fully aware of the history and population of 4Chan, /pol/ etc. I understand that much of it is just transgressive and dark play. I also don't give a fuck. If you want to joke with the white supremicist, I'm not going to give you a pass because you think breaking social norms is fun.

Well I'm not going to give you a pass on simplifying things to the point of making them look like something else to suit your desires. You don't need to give me a pass or condemn me. You should give a fuck about what things really mean and where they come from because it's vital to understanding them, and to condemn without understanding is prejudice, which I legitimately don't want to see anyone doing.

The design poposfully echos a lot of fascist logos like Traditionalist workers party, American Vanguard, Nazi, Golden Dawn etc.

Now that's a more relevant and interesting argument. One influence is satire, or exaggeration, several is... well it's either a much better satire (which is cool) or a sign of acceptance of those influences. You should have said that in the first place. It looks like you got cut off, what were you going to say?

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Quick explanation for the confused:

This set of arms was in Destiny 2:

The symbol on them has a resemblance to a symbol (the most popular one out of many) used to represent "Kekistan":

As you can see, the "Kekistan" symbol has a vertical component and a fourth horizontal bar in the middle not present in the armor design, and the armor has a vertical bar on either side of the design not present on the other symbol. I believe it's a coincidence, they're both symbols made of straight lines with a few diagonals. As of now it's been replaced by a more generic-looking tape-wrapped piece of armor.
"Kekistan" is a proposed nation for various right-wing or conservative groups. It's unclear if it was first proposed by 4chan or Reddit, or how serious the proposal was, many have said since it first appeared that it was meant to satirize the many previous proposals of a new nation for conservatives, or a "/pol/ nation", or a nation "only for whites" (and there have been many of these proposals by various groups, which themselves are almost never serious even if the people participating treat them seriously).
People commonly associate it with 4chan, 4chan's /pol/ board, white nationalism, fascism, and various other things, but like anything from that corner of the Internet it's not pinned down so easily.
It's not inherently linked to white nationalism or Nazism so much as it's linked to almost everything on the social and political fringes that isn't leftist or liberal, including libertarianism, fascism, and several other ideologies. No one owns the flag, the banner, the symbol, or any of it.
("kek", by the way, also has nebulous origins, it may come from players of World of Warcraft because of text filtering it did, or from players of Starcraft because its popularity in Korea where laughter is represented as "kekeke", it may come from people mistyping "lel" which itself is a spinoff of "lol", some people even say it comes from a Finnish snack food called "Topkek")
Apparently some people are getting all up in arms about this. I haven't seen much of that, although there's going to be more than I've seen. What I have seen (where I've been the last few hours) is tons of people getting in a tizzy about people getting up in arms about this. (It always amazes me how people get offended over other people getting offended, especially when they say that offended is dumb while they're doing it themselves.)
I think the whole thing doesn't matter one bit and no one will be thinking about it in a few weeks.

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Quick explanation for the confused:

This set of arms was in Destiny 2:

The symbol on them has a resemblance to a symbol (the most popular one out of many) used to represent "Kekistan":

As you can see, the "Kekistan" symbol has a vertical component and a fourth horizontal bar in the middle not present in the armor design, and the armor has a vertical bar on either side of the design not present on the other symbol. I believe it's a coincidence, they're both symbols made of straight lines with a few diagonals. As of now it's been replaced by a more generic-looking tape-wrapped piece of armor.
"Kekistan" is a proposed nation for various right-wing or conservative groups. It's unclear if it was first proposed by 4chan or Reddit, or how serious the proposal was, many have said since it first appeared that it was meant to satirize the many previous proposals of a new nation for conservatives, or a "/pol/ nation", or a nation "only for whites" (and there have been many of these proposals by various groups, which themselves are almost never serious even if the people participating treat them seriously).
People commonly associate it with 4chan, 4chan's /pol/ board, white nationalism, fascism, and various other things, but like anything from that corner of the Internet it's not pinned down so easily.
It's not inherently linked to white nationalism or Nazism so much as it's linked to almost everything on the social and political fringes that isn't leftist or liberal, including libertarianism, fascism, and several other ideologies. No one owns the flag, the banner, the symbol, or any of it.
("kek", by the way, also has nebulous origins, it may come from players of World of Warcraft because of text filtering it did, or from players of Starcraft because its popularity in Korea where laughter is represented as "kekeke", it may come from people mistyping "lel" which itself is a spinoff of "lol", some people even say it comes from a Finnish snack food called "Topkek")
Apparently some people are getting all up in arms about this. I haven't seen much of that, although there's going to be more than I've seen. What I have seen (where I've been the last few hours) is tons of people getting in a tizzy about people getting up in arms about this. (It always amazes me how people get offended over other people getting offended, especially when they say that offended is dumb while they're doing it themselves.)
I think the whole thing doesn't matter one bit and no one will be thinking about it in a few weeks.

Totally agree.

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A symbol I've never seen, made up on the internet, and ascribed to Neo nazis based on the claims of a dubious partisan group.

What can you do, as an artist, when there is no possible way you could know this stuff? I mean, unless you spend all your day looking up these little things, how could you conceivably know?

We are getting to the point where this low rent stuff is paralyzing people and preventing actual work.

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A symbol I've never seen, made up on the internet, and ascribed to Neo nazis based on the claims of a dubious partisan group.

to be fair, there are actual neo-nazis that like to wave that banner, my point was they're not the only ones

What can you do, as an artist, when there is no possible way you could know this stuff? I mean, unless you spend all your day looking up these little things, how could you conceivably know?

We are getting to the point where this low rent stuff is paralyzing people and preventing actual work.

yeah it's a problem
I would say they should participate in as many communities as they can (not just for this reason but also to get a variety in their feedback and to draw inspiration from them), but you can't know everything that pops up, which is why I think it's better to just leave it

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When confronted with information they did not previously know they acknowledge and learn from it. Change the offending item except where the artistic work requires it (at which point they probably aren't in this situation and the argument is about the merit of their argument) and don't try to defend it for purposes of artistic integrity or sheer laziness of not wanting to change the work to better fulfill its actual purpose.

I know there are people who would disagree with this assessment. But the only other option is for the artist to choose to be an antagonist to their audience at which point I don't personally believe they deserve an audience.

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Yeah. I'll disagree. Whatever the truth is, is what should win out. If this design was meant as a provocation or as support for a bad cause, then remove it and the person that put it in. If it was merely a design that referenced some innocent meme or just happened to somewhat resemble something else, then make that clear and keep it in.

Because, where does it end? If a large hate group starts using the Destiny Tricorn as their rallying symbol should Bungie have to remove that to avoid being "antagonistic"?! Of course not. And that same logic applies equally to any work. Shouldn't matter if something is well known and copyrighted or obscure to some small gaming community.

The truth should win. And in this case it probably hasn't. :(

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The context of the Destiny tricorn is inherent to the work and the argument isn't about artistic integrity it is about defamation and use of copyrighted or trademarked or whatever symbols. That is outside this context.

The problem is that the "truth" is malleable. The meaning of communication rests solely on the receiver. Even in the context of visual arts. So regardless of the "truth" of your intent, it doesn't matter if the truth of what is viewed is something else. The only truth that always wins out is compassion and understanding, and denouncing things that are counter to that, intentional or not, is important.

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The context of the Destiny tricorn is inherent to the work...

Except that's very easy to say when it isn't currently being used by bad people. What if you woke up tomorrow and there was a large rally of some hate group and they were using it? What then?

If we go with the truth, that the Tricorn is a logo of a video game and represents safety, protection, and goodness, then nothing changes. If we go with compassion then a symbol that did stand for some sort of good would have its meaning very quickly lost and it will only ever be used in the context of hate.

Compassion is great and all, but is it really necessary to scrap and abandon something to hate because some small group is corrupting it?

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Apologies for an apparent lack of clarity. However, Destiny, from it's announcement, has had the Tricorn at its center. That is "inherent to the work" and that doesn't change given someone reappropriating it. Something that looks like a meme, or something like an Easter Egg that is offensive, however, are not inherent to a work. That is a difference of context. If a hate group used the Tricorn tomorrow, it would not change it being inherent to the integrity of the work. It also would probably lead to other actions that are not limited to positive community relations.

Compassion and understanding doesn't mean giving into hate groups. I am unsure what context would lead to that conclusion. If someone says you hurt or upset them, compassion and understanding is to listen and correct the error. Obviously you fight the hate group trying to poison your symbol. That doesn't keep you in any way from adjusting the details of a work to better communicate your values and support your audience.

If a hate group can take away your symbol's meaning, it can't have had that strong a meaning or context before or it was otherwise not worth defending. But once it has become a hate symbol, you do have to react accordingly, otherwise you stand to antagonize your audience.

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That doesn't work. Agent provecturs AKA Mobys (after the musician who promoted this technique during the last US election) intentionally would adopt symbols in order to associate them with a different group in order to either elevate or tarnish reputations.

I would have preferred if Bungie had just said any reference was unintentional and accidental, and ignored it. I think revising the design will lead to a bad precedent, where other groups will claim other images or gear +shader combinations are "hate" and push for them to be removed as well.

Given the poor reputation of SJW today, I half expect someone to come forward saying that having all the low level ships as a base white before shaders is racist. Stupider comments have been made.

All of this will limit Bungie from making more content, as now any new design has to be vetted by an ever shifting, nebulous "bias response team".

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Given the poor reputation of SJW today, I half expect someone to come forward saying that having all the low level ships as a base white before shaders is racist. Stupider comments have been made.

Exactly, as a white person, I resent that all the boring crap in this game is white...

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While I think you have to account for how something is likely to be received, I think it's going too far to say that the entirety of the meaning is on the part of the one receiving it. I don't think we can throw out intent as completely irrelevant, and I don't think it's fair to put every interpretation as on par on all the others.

Now, I think it's probably for the best that Bungie removed this. Because it doesn't seem very important, and so it's in the best interest for the proliferation of their vision that they remove it, so that the game remains an inclusive and fun experience for the playerbase. Because that's what Bungie wants it to be.

Had they knuckled down, kept the symbol, delineated that it was not related to the whole Kekistan thing, denounced the connotations that they didn't intend, and made their case for artistic integrity, I would side with them. It's a delicate balance on what should be done, but ultimately it would have been their right to do that. (Which, of course, nobody is disputing.)

So I can see where Ragashingo is coming from- it's a shame that an artistic vision has to suffer because some jackasses are ruining things by association. And it feels a little like we're letting them win by caving like this, that everything they're even close to has to go poof in the name of sensitivity.

And I can see where you're coming from- it's important to respect others' feelings, and it's an important part of proper communication to consider how your message is likely to be received, whatever you intend by it.

While I mentioned something elsewhere to the effect of a pragmatic point of view on the matter, with respect to what Bungie should have done, I think compassion is the best answer. But that goes both ways?

I'm getting pressed for time now so basically my point is that a good faith effort on everybody's part is important; I'm not saying that people shouldn't take offense to things that weren't meant to offend, but it's important to be able to delineate between something that makes you uncomfortable on accident by reminding you of a symbol with negative connotations and something that makes you uncomfortable because it is actually intentionally such a symbol. Obviously there's room for uncertainty in telling which something is, and you can still want the former category to be removed, but mutual understanding just helps everything along.

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So if I were at my PC I would have a muchc more involved response. But alas I am not. So mostly this relates to your last section as I think that is contextually most important here. (Also it gets way too big if I hit more points)

You mention good faith and an ability to identify when something is an intentionally offensive symbol or a coincidental one. This is why we have the D words: dialogue, discourse, and discussion. The overall intent of these three words is the same end result, but I use all three because they hold different information to different people and in different spaces.

The end point is that there are statements coming from both sides to reach an understanding. Compassion is a combination of the empathy and patience to go through it. I acknowledge that whatever I write only holds the meaning as you read it. However, because this is mot me giving a speech or publishing a paper, we have the opportunity to work through that limitation. You respond to the meaning of my words as you understand them. Then I interpret your words in that same manner until, hopefully, we reach an understanding. If we don't we hit an impasse and thay is either an ideological difference or some other limitation on communication.

I am very passionate about visual communication. I have spent time both personally and academically involved with meaning via individual interpretation. This is only intended to help aid in why I keep going on about it here. I think in a community like this we have the ability to work through things that may upset others - but not all situations merit trying to work through it and are better served by correction and moving forward.

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Yeah, that's fair.

I think a lot of my disconnect with that there was uh, part misinterpretation and part varying ideas of what meaning being purely on the side of the interpreter should mean. Which uh. Makes this a pretty much textbook demonstration of exactly what you're saying?

So that's kinda funny.

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Good stuff above.

So, I'm a little confused. I knew the internet has revisionisht history, but it's a little disturbing to see my WoW remembrances nearly wiped off the internet. I can't find a good example image of a birthday kek.

Check out this birthday card someone's mom made. (Please ignore the cuteness, and read the typed content. heh)

I've been seeing "kek" double for 'lol" in the world of warcraft community since... well, since the players figured out that "lol" when spoken by the horde showed up for the alliance as "kek". I think this was an inside joke from blizzard, because of "kekeke" in starcraft chat.

Apparently some sites attribute kek to 4chan, and dismiss rumors of what I'm talking about as hearsay... which is too bad.

I am saddened to hear that this has been somehow politicized and taken over as an offensive symbol. Because, in my old-school context, kekistan is actually pretty funny...! But apparently not anymore. :/

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Good stuff above.

So, I'm a little confused. I knew the internet has revisionisht history, but it's a little disturbing to see my WoW remembrances nearly wiped off the internet. I can't find a good example image of a birthday kek.

Check out this birthday card someone's mom made. (Please ignore the cuteness, and read the typed content. heh)

I've been seeing "kek" double for 'lol" in the world of warcraft community since... well, since the players figured out that "lol" when spoken by the horde showed up for the alliance as "kek". I think this was an inside joke from blizzard, because of "kekeke" in starcraft chat.

Apparently some sites attribute kek to 4chan, and dismiss rumors of what I'm talking about as hearsay... which is too bad.

I am saddened to hear that this has been somehow politicized and taken over as an offensive symbol. Because, in my old-school context, kekistan is actually pretty funny...! But apparently not anymore. :/

I never played WoW, but "kek" and "Top kek" have been around in harmless use for well over a decade (topkek often used to describe something as being really funny). It might have started with WoW, or any of the handful of super-popular MMOs of that era, but it was always pretty harmless. Heck, I just barely found out that (like all things that 4chan has harmlessly embraced over years) it's been turned into a negative symbol.

I dunno. It won't stop me from using it on occasion, and I don't think that the "old-school context" should die for you, so if it was funny to you then, there's nothing wrong with that. The concept of kekistan was definitely born of humor-based roots, of that I have no doubt...

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I assumed kek was always a wow reference. It's the "you don't speak that language" translation of "lol" (I forget which language it is. Common? Orcish? it's one of those).

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Apparently some sites attribute kek to 4chan, and dismiss rumors of what I'm talking about as hearsay... which is too bad.

well it didn't become well-known until a few years ago, which likely has to do with channers
the wiki you're linking to covers /s4s/ (or [s4s]), a board that was created as an April Fool's joke to make fun of the idea that 4chan was becoming too much like Reddit and too restrictive in moderation (it stands for Shit 4chan Says, a play on the subreddit Shit Reddit Says) which of course immediately became the most meme-heavy message board in existence, and still is
they like to claim responsibility for "kek" as well as pretty much every meme created since the start of the board four and a half years ago

I am saddened to hear that this has been somehow politicized and taken over as an offensive symbol. Because, in my old-school context, kekistan is actually pretty funny...! But apparently not anymore. :/

it is sad
fortunately it matters even less in the grand scheme of things than the kind of people that would create it, use it, or reject it

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But knew of this story and dismantled them before they just up and disappeared.

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This was the first pair of Hunter arms I got that I really loved, only for the blades at the elbows. After the patch yesterday, they look different in game but if you inspect them they look the same. The ones in game don't have the blades anymore and dont look remotely like the cool design. =/

However, after doing some scouting, the crucible arms have the same design, without the racism.

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I read through this whole thread and... yikes. Real talk here. It doesn't matter what the origins of this particular symbol are-- people have an issue with it because it was used by an actual real-life white supremacist group who attended an actual real-life white supremacy rally that resulted in one death. Bungie doesn't want to be associated with white supremacy groups that use a symbol that's very close to something in their game, so they decided to change it. No matter where it came from or who used it originally, Bungie is reacting to a real life scenario.

(One might also point out that if you really want to reclaim the non-supremacist meaning of the term/symbol, your target should be the white supremacists using it, not the people reacting to the white supremacists.)

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Agreed. It felt a little like saying the Swastika has ancient religious meanings that are not affiliated with the Nazi party and then attempting to rehabilitate it while it is still being used as a symbol of white supremacy. No sane brand is going to put one on their product on purpose.

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Not to start an argument about the swastika, because, why the hell would I do that-

I just find it so strange that it's always the "ancient" religious meanings of the swastika.

Because they're also current religious meanings? It's a symbol that's still used, in a lot of contexts.

Now, the question of how that should or should not be carried over into the West is really complicated and, again, not something I actually want to get into, but it is a thing that's more complicated than "This used to mean a good thing, but then was totally reappropriated to mean a bad thing". Although that's probably true of almost all of these kinds of things, I guess.

Still not really something to slap on a shirt, in the West, but I guess my point is it being the cut and dry example is strange because it's one of the messiest I know of?

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It is a very interesting point you make. I have seen, in person, modern religious use of the symbol. Which itself, as I recall, is pure coincidence that the siymbols have matching features. Both the internal and external context are important things to consider, and regional differences of meaning and experiences complicate things further.

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I read through this whole thread and... yikes. Real talk here. It doesn't matter what the origins of this particular symbol are-- people have an issue with it because it was used by an actual real-life white supremacist group who attended an actual real-life white supremacy rally that resulted in one death. Bungie doesn't want to be associated with white supremacy groups that use a symbol that's very close to something in their game, so they decided to change it. No matter where it came from or who used it originally, Bungie is reacting to a real life scenario.

That's all a true and fair point, but nobody here even remotely implied that Bungie shouldn't remove the symbol, regardless of context. Obviously removing it is the right thing to do, and obviously that symbol now has a recognizable/negative meaning in the modern world.

The discussion is really more about the origin and place of origin of the symbols, which is more nuanced than simply "white supremacists from a white supremacist board". It implies and oversimplifies too much to just leave it at that. If you don't care about details, that's fine, but the truth is, I feel, always important.

And believe me, I'm not exactly pro white supremacy myself, but I'm not going to tell people that things are automatically bad simply because certain groups have their own twisted interpretations of them (Pepe the frog did nothing wrong!)

But again, I totally understand and respect your perspective.

(One might also point out that if you really want to reclaim the non-supremacist meaning of the term/symbol, your target should be the white supremacists using it, not the people reacting to the white supremacists.)

Right, but they also shouldn't feel guilty about enjoying it in their own context. I loved those gauntlets because not only has "kek" has always been funny to me, and they clearly say that, but they are also super impractical by design, which just adds to the humor. I do totally agree that they have to go, though. That was never in question once the details surfaced.

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The creator of Pepe the Frog killed him because he became a hate symbol. So while he may have done nothing wrong, you have to acknowledge that context if you choose to use or reference it. Totally agree about not forgetting about things prior to them being embraced by folks bent on hatred, but in the same context we can't forget about what other contexts they get used in.

I think you are right in that people can maintain their use in the old forms, so long as they are conscious of how they are externally perceive given newer contexts. And that is where one should be careful and understanding. Like everyone has agreed Bungie is being.

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The creator of Pepe the Frog killed him because he became a hate symbol. So while he may have done nothing wrong, you have to acknowledge that context if you choose to use or reference it. Totally agree about not forgetting about things prior to them being embraced by folks bent on hatred, but in the same context we can't forget about what other contexts they get used in.

I think you are right in that people can maintain their use in the old forms, so long as they are conscious of how they are externally perceive given newer contexts. And that is where one should be careful and understanding. Like everyone has agreed Bungie is being.

How is the public at large supposed to remember an original meaning of a work or symbol if we abandon it once a hate group gets a hold of it?

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If the original meaning isn't strong enough to outlive or overcome a hate symbol, then you will probably have stopped using it. If the original meaning is being maintained because it is important than it probably won't be a meaning lost to history. But when it comes to language and communication things change. Sometimes quickly and aggressively.

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Especially when one side gives up.

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The creator of Pepe the Frog killed him because he became a hate symbol. So while he may have done nothing wrong, you have to acknowledge that context if you choose to use or reference it. Totally agree about not forgetting about things prior to them being embraced by folks bent on hatred, but in the same context we can't forget about what other contexts they get used in.

I think you are right in that people can maintain their use in the old forms, so long as they are conscious of how they are externally perceive given newer contexts. And that is where one should be careful and understanding. Like everyone has agreed Bungie is being.

How is the public at large supposed to remember an original meaning of a work or symbol if we abandon it once a hate group gets a hold of it?

This is a great point, Raga, and entirely valid. It's also one I would support in a lot of situations. Make X Great Again as a phrase shouldn't be excised because of its associations. The toothbrush mustache is perfectly fine. In a black and white universe, I agree with you.

Unfortunately, there is a rich tapestry of shades and colours out there, and in a situation like this, a cartoon frog, or a coincidental glove design, things that have little effect on the public beyond their appropriations by hateful people, then maybe we can consider it better to just drop the symbol altogether.

In the real world, remember we often have to compromise with our principles for compassion, or for practicality, or for any number of reasons. It's really tempting sometimes to just be opposed to things because it upsets our ideals, and most of the time, that's fine and it doesn't matter. But if you're the designer who accidentally made the gloves look like a bad thing, you are faced with a problem. Take a hard line, which the community known for appropriating unrelated things for hate may take as an endorsement, or change the essentially meaningless design and denounce them, thereby keeping your product from aiding them in a racist mission?

I know what I'd do. I'd change those gloves in a second, even if I really liked the design. I think you would too. It's not worth it.

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I read through this whole thread and... yikes. Real talk here. It doesn't matter what the origins of this particular symbol are-- people have an issue with it because it was used by an actual real-life white supremacist group who attended an actual real-life white supremacy rally that resulted in one death. Bungie doesn't want to be associated with white supremacy groups that use a symbol that's very close to something in their game, so they decided to change it. No matter where it came from or who used it originally, Bungie is reacting to a real life scenario.

That's all a true and fair point, but nobody here even remotely implied that Bungie shouldn't remove the symbol, regardless of context.

I implied they shouldn't remove it, and intentionally so. It's not the same symbol, it was not created to cause people grief, and the whole thing does not matter. If they want to that's their call, it doesn't bother me, but if it was me I'd probably leave it. (Of course, if it was me, it wouldn't happen because I browse these places on regular. You'd be surprised how handy it is to be familiar with the lowest people on the Internet.)
It really is funny. I don't respect you as a person because you act like an asshole, but I at least respected your commitment to the principles of not restricting speech and saying what you really think and feel, and here you are on DBO 90% locked down so as not to get banned or rather told off by mods and so you get to play with people. It's to the point you act like someone with a different personality (except when it shows through like piss on a drunk man's blanket).
You've eviscerated yourself. That is to say, you have no guts.

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Seems like a complete coincidence to me, but removing it is the best course of action, I think.

It's Bungie's prerogative to change things to better ensure that nobody playing is offended or hurt, and say what you will about censorship, this really didn't seem like they were bowing to pressure and compromising their vision but rather taking steps to better reflect said vision in reality, and not just some magical, contextless, no detail can be compromised vaccuum. I feel like people are probably crying out otherwise, though, though I haven't gone looking for it.

I first heard about this looking at Bungie's twitter and seeing a notice about it being removed, so, it seems like they're on top of it.

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