Anti-Nazi buttons

[stardreamer]

I've been wearing a safety pin for several months now, but I was beginning to feel dissatisfied. It's subtle... maybe too subtle, unless you happen to hang around with a lot of activists. Then I read this article. And I decided that I was going to switch from wearing a safety pin to wearing an anti-Nazi button. Unlike the author of the article, I didn't have to sift thru vintage shops looking for one; I just typed "custom pin-back buttons" into Google and checked out the sources that popped up. I settled on this company, where I could order 100 1" buttons with the pin style I preferred for $.28 each, plus shipping and a $25 first-time setup fee (this drops to $5 for reorders). I found a good free-art image online and placed the order, and less than a week later I had my buttons. I've been wearing one ever since, but as I don't go out all that much, it was hard to tell if anyone noticed.

However, the reason I ordered 100 was to not just have one to wear, but more to give away. I keep a few in with my wallet change, a bag of 20 in my car, and at MidSouthCon I put a couple out on my table, visible but unobtrusive. Every time someone said, "I like your pin," I responded with, "Take one, they're free." I took 30 buttons to the con, and gave away 20 of them; I consider that a reasonable success. I noticed that most of the people who took one were young, but I also had one woman well into her 30s take one because she said she was Asatru and that community has been having an invasion of white supremacist neo-Nazis.

Overall, I'm pleased. This is something I can continue to do easily. Wearing the button serves the same purposes as the safety pin, only more unmistakably. Furthermore, it does something else -- it punctures the right-wing bubble by saying visibly, "This is someone who doesn't agree with you." And if having a couple on my table at cons costs me a few sales... first, I think it may gain me more, and second, I don't give a shit about anyone who wouldn't buy from me because I've declared myself to be a decent, civilized human being.

Comments

[kailing]

this is great!

[serpentine]

You are a good person and oh god, that woman is very right about the effing Neo-nazis invading Heathen religious spaces. There's a fair amount of bigots who claim to be Heathen to the point that I have to be very careful with whom I associate with religiously. It's not unlike being a liberal Christian dealing with the more conservative sects.

[redbird]

I'm not sure how to tag this; if there's a tag you'd like for this that isn't already on the pulldown list, comment here and I will add it.

[stardreamer]

I didn't see anything apt on the list either. What about "visual resistance" or "quiet resistance"?

[redbird]

I have gone with "visual resistance" and "buttons" (our tag "badges" means something different).

[sporky_rat]

Aah, MidSouthCon. A few friends were there. (Barony of Grey Niche, SCA.)
What's your button image look like?

[stardreamer]

Let's hope this works:


I saw Kane, but not in garb. Didn't see anyone else I recognized. I used to be from Nyddirdwy, but I've been gafiated for nearly 20 years now (and am currently living in Texas).

[sporky_rat]

Oh, Kane, that absolute darling. His wife is about to be made a Pelican.

I need to make some of those. I wonder if the button machine at the comic shop can be rented. (He might find it interesting to use the Joker punching the Red Skull, too.)

Thanks!

[recessional]

I also had one woman well into her 30s take one because she said she was Asatru

Oh good.

I have been thinking a lot lately of the "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" shirts that the punks I knew in highschool emphatically wore all the time, and having a vague sense that there were very DEFINITELY some spaces currently going that could use a similar set of clear signals.