Some people in the alt-right movement associate themselves with pepes, and there are racist pepes, but not all pepes are racist. There are still many non-racist communities that use pepes.

The swastika has a long and honorable past in India, but displaying it without very specific context indicates Nazi sympathy.

Perhaps the ability to corrupt symbols by association shouldn't be given to groups that haven't committed heinous acts?

In practice, we tend to ban the symbols where they represent hate most often, rather than make distinctions about who means what by displaying them.

The creator has weighed in fairly recently

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/08/pepe-the-frog-...

It has occasionally been used in a racist way, yes. In that sense, it's a racist symbol, just as the numbers 12, 13, and 14 are racist symbols.

ADL, who seem to be the self-appointed arbiter of such things, says that most uses are not racist.

You are admirably restrained on this. Behind the shortage of comments on this thread are a lot of people wondering how they reply in a way that doesn't downvote them into oblivion. I, for one, will call this spade as it is. What a clever little hate machine.

No, pepe was bastardized by Hillary during the election. Historically he has nothing to do with racism. He's just an expressive depiction of anon.