KA Design Presents..The Swastika T-Shirt

In what I can only guess seemed like a good idea at the time (that time perhaps being when the people involved were under the influence of hallucinogens), a group called KA Design is selling a Swastika t-shirt via the Teespring platform.

The US-based clothing design website Teespring is selling tee shirts and sweatshirts branded with swastikas, aiming to make them a “symbol of love and peace.”

The designs, created by KA Designs and sold on the site, all display large swastikas in the front. One shows the Nazi-associated symbol in rainbow colors with the word “Peace,” another one with the word “Zen,” one reading “Love” and a third design, in black, shows a spiral of swastikas. They range in price from $20 to $35.

“Here at KA we explore boundaries. We push them forward,” the company wrote as a description for the products. “Let’s make the Swastika a symbol of Love and Peace. Together, we can succeed.”

Before being used by Hitler’s Nazi regime, swastikas were recognized as Buddhist and Hindu signs carrying positive associations like harmony and good fortune. KA Designs is attempting to relate the now-negative sign to its more amicable origins.

The company even made a promotional video claiming that the Nazis “took the swastika, rotated it 45 degrees, and turned it into a symbol of hatred, fear, war, racism, power.”

“They stigmatized the swastika, they won, they limited our freedom…or maybe not?” the video continues. “The swastika is coming back.”

On some of the tee shirts sold by KA Designs, the swastika remains turned by 45 degrees, identical to the Nazis’ use of the symbol.

In a Facebook post on Sunday, Executive Director of the Israeli-Jewish Congress and Israeli activist Arsen Ostrovsky called the shirts “obscene and disgusting.”

“It may have been a symbol of peace,” he wrote. “That most certainly is not what it is primarily associated with today.”

Ostrovsky also pointed a finger at Teespring for seeking to ”profit of this in the name of art, trying to turn this irredeemable Nazi symbol of hate and murder, into a symbol of ‘love and peace.’”

“They are not unique in this however, with a disturbingly growing pattern in recent years of other clothing companies seeking to do similar,” he told The Jerusalem Post. “This is not only highly naïve, but grossly offensive.

https://www.facebook.com/ka.art.designstudio/videos/101318353845753/

KA Design describes itself as “Questioning boundaries.” I would suggest they have crossed the boundary of decency, good taste and common sense.

But they clearly think these t-shirts will sell. And given its rainbow colors, I am guessing they might sell quite well in Chicago.

You can join me in registering your complaint to KA design by emailing them at [email protected].

19 thoughts on “KA Design Presents..The Swastika T-Shirt”

  1. Why is it only lefty progressives who are permitted to decide which images “question boundaries” and thus are brave and necessary, and which images “create a hostile environment” are are thus “hate speech,” equivalent to unprovoked physical violence?

    1. Excellent point. The Left controls the cultural narrative because it dominates on campus and in the media.

      We’re now living in a time when the swastika is being rehabilitated as a symbol of love and peace, while the American flag is being demonized as a symbol of racism and hate. End of days.

      1. Some things are cool. Some things will never be cool.

        Like swatiska t-shirts. The crooked cross was already dated in the 1920s and its still dated today.

    2. They would never make an anti-Islamic t-shirt.

      With Jews though, everything is permitted. Since Jews are live and let live folks, there is no danger in offending them.

      If you offend Muslims, you can lose your head.

  2. mrharmonicaman

    Fists in the faces of wearers of these shirts would have at one point was a symbol of hate and war….now it’s all about love and peace. Let’s change the stigma of fists in the face or we can just ‘punch a fascist’.

    1. Orwellianism rules the Left.

      Everything about them is counter-cultural. After adopting the hammer and sickle, it was only a matter of time before the swatiska was sure to follow in its wake.

      Given the virulent anti-Semitism on the Left today, I’d say its a logical development.

  3. The swastika has positive associations in Indian culture. Whatever its origins though, its today a symbol of hate, terror and genocide.

    To my mind, its not a symbol that needs to be made respectable – particularly since anti-Semites identify with it so proudly.

    What’s clear is the t-shirt doesn’t send the desired message and in point of fact its market is probably going to be different from its intended one.

    The Nazis made it the motif for their movement for good reason.

    1. “The swastika has positive associations in Indian culture. Whatever its
      origins though, its today a symbol of hate, terror and genocide.”
      Well, yes and no. As you yourself just wrote, in India it has positive associations even today. This is also true further east than India. In short, it remains positive everywhere it always was, outside of the Western world.
      In the Western world, however, the associations are quite clear.
      Maybe somebody should ask these guys if they think it’s time to make the crusader cross or the Confederate flag, or pointy white hoods, into a symbol of piece and love and start churning out the rainbow t-shirts. I wonder what they’d say.

      1. Yup. Its been found on Hindu temples and in ruins in the Far East and is the oldest symbol on the planet. William Shirer wrote about having seen it in his classic history of Nazi Germany in those places before the Nazis came along and appropriated it.

        Its a good parallel you draw and some things are not just a good decision business wise and considering how it looks to most people. Quite frankly, it needs to be canned. Because people don’t like what it represents, unless you mean to rehabilitate the Nazis.

  4. This begs the question “What were they thinking?” or as the case maybe not thinking.

    Is project was probably conceived in a drug induced stupor, that is the only way this might have considered a good idea. Alternately, this is a manifestation of the darkness in some people’s hearts and minds.

    1. Kitsch is terrible.

      Its always tied in to a particular period.

      Would any one wear it ten years from now? I doubt it.

  5. Craig Eisenberg

    Is this the work of an anti-Israel, neo-Nazi type? Who are the PEOPLE hiding behind the name of KA Designs?

    1. I’d want to know, also… it has the same associations as the Crescent. And let’s not be insulted with the notion the Nazis were into love and peace. Muslims are called the religion of peace and all they do is a perversion of peace.

      We don’t need to have this company reinvent the wheel and its in poor taste and we don’t need it on the market – there’s no real demand for it to come out.

  6. This is not edgy. It’s painful to the families of every person who was murdered by the Nazis. Antisemitism is easy to promote because the Jewish people are less than 1% of the world population and are peaceful, successful, educated, intelligent and joyful. Edgy is pushing the envelope on radical Islamic terrorists, fake “Palestinian” refugees, Muslim children learning to kill. Make tee shirts that say,”Palestinians: a name made up by Arafat”. Or: photo of an old map asking: “Where is Palestine”. Or: old history books showing the flags of the Middle East,” The Israeli Flag is the only flag that ever flew over Israel”. Teach real history on your T shirts. Correct revisionist history. How about a shirt with the number of beheadings, honor killings, gay killings, all in the name of Islam?
    Come on KA…..be the first to be really edgy. Oh yeah, and be sure to use peace symbols and love on those shirts. Now, that would be edgy. Antisemitism is the oldest bullying hate in the world since the beginning of time. KA, you are pathetic.

    1. Not cutting edge.

      Anti-Semitism has always been respectable – but its never been more respectable than it is in our time.

      Not surprised the kind of stuff once confined to the fever swamps of the hate fringe is now creeping into the mainstream.

      This is why we need to push back against it.

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