To be fair, Michael Jordan spent a few years trying to rehabilitate the Hitler mustache in his Hanes ads. The problem is that Hitler's become so associated with it that it's now broadly known as the Hitler mustache (as opposed to the toothbrush mustache - thanks DanBC!), which makes it pretty hard to dissociate it with the man for most people.

a black person with a Hitler moustache is not remotely nearly as bad. they really don't look like Hitler, and it's very unlikely they are secretly hoping for the supremacy of the Aryan race

Lots of people notices the commercial and when he would sport it around Charlotte. ESPN even mentioned it, and IIRC he cut it because of the negative attention it was getting. I could be wrong about the last point.

With that said, when I saw it on an NBA game before the commercials aired I was like 'Hey! Look! Jordan has a Hitler stache, wth?' To which my friend responded 'he needs a new PR person'

The only black person I know of who has a Hitler mustache is Robert Mugabe.

And Michael Jordan is not the paragon of nice.

>I'm guessing we need a few hundred years before we can use these things without it being associated to Nazism.

Imho this has more to do with a lack of knowledge among the general (western) populations which mostly only know the symbol from the Nazis. But not all swastika are same as there are quite a few differences in orientation and details between the Nazi Swastika and the actual Hindu/Buddhist symbols.

> But not all swastika are same as there are quite a few differences in orientation and details between the Nazi Swastika and the actual Hindu/Buddhist symbols.

The only difference I have seen between the nazi swastika and the Hindu one is that the nazi one is at an angle.

The toothbrush moustache:

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2009/jul/31/richard-herrin...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8218726.stm

You need to explain yourself better. You seem to be opposed to Nazism, but in favor of their symbol. Why?

Not OP, but probably for aesthetic reasons. It's symmetrical, and has been a religious symbol for 11,000 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika

Swastikas are an ancient symbol of many religions and cultures across the world, and is usually a symbol of sacredness, good, luck, god, and other such meanings. In fact, the name itself comes from a sanskrit word. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika#Hinduism

You'll see it in much stonework on their temples and other buildings, especially as it does not have the associated stigma in Asia as it does in the West.

The swastika predated the Nazi party and Hitler by several millennia, and is still an important part of several religions and cultures. Wishing for the swastika to become un-stigmatized isn't really so controversial from that perspective.

Presumably a reference to the long history of the symbol prior to its appropriation by the Nazis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika

I upvoted you because it is sad that ignorance is downvoted :(

My initial instinct was to down vote you, because (as we've discussed) Swastikas are synonymous with Nazism to many people, but on second reading it didn't seem like you were actually supporting Nazis so I decided I would ask. I also thought others might down vote you like I almost did.

I know I could have done a Google search and figured it out on my own, but if we're not allowed to ask questions which are already answered somewhere on the internet then I guess we wouldn't be asking very many questions.

A downvote like that isn't personal, and if a comment that's wrong out of ignorance is visibly downvoted then that can help teach passers-by.

Because it's a symbol that existed before they did. Why should they have the ability to wipe the symbol out of use just because they used it for bad things?

I assume because the swastica has many uses that are far older than it's modern western usage [0]

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika

The Nazis stole the symbol from a religion (I believe Hinduism, may be wrong).

Variations of the swastika have been used in many cultures around the world, from the Far East to ancient Europe. The Nazis took it from the latter source, though it shows up in many Indian and East Asian religious contexts.

Buddhism.

Because it's not their symbol. It was a symbol with many positive meanings that existed for a long time before Nazis.

Doesn't seem odd as the symbol was used for thousands of years before the nazis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika

It is not their symbol. They are just the most recent to use it.