The U.S. Coast Guard has released a new, firmer policy addressing the display of hate symbols like swastikas and nooses just hours after it was publicly revealed that it made plans to describe them as “potentially divisive” — a term that prompted outcry from lawmakers and advocates.
I am saying they were already being used as a hate symbols by the state. The state used them to threaten runaway slaves for example.
It is very different than hate groups coopting the swastika and Norse runes, where the original context was not hate based.