![]() The symbolic significance of the safety pin can be dated back to the Netherlands during World War II. ![]() That claim had popped more than once prior to Brexit, as exemplified by a February 2016 blog post: Still there are lessons from history that should not be forgotten and this is one of those. So there you have the story of the common Safety Pin. Children, grandmothers, nursing mothers, everyone who struggled for their freedom wore the "Safety Pin" not just as an act of defiance but a symbol of hope and freedom. But it wasn't just limited to the fighting resistance. Quickly the "Safety Pin" was adopted by the Dutch underground as their unofficial insignia. Worn so it lay hidden under a collar or the hem of a skirt, then only brought out, quickly flashed as a means to identify each other. But the Dutch people found a much more subtle way to express their solitary. Open rebellion was a sure way to find yourself hauled up on a gallows or simply shot outright. An Internet post from July 2011 asserted that safety pins were adopted as a secret signal of Dutch resistance against Nazis during World War II:ĭutch resistance collapsed under the weight of the German war machine but her people never gave up their loyalty to Queen Wilhelmina. articles was that the safety pin symbol emerged in response to reports of hate speech and violence reported online, but whether or those stories were rooted in real-life events was not addressed, and the word "anecdotal" peppered pieces on both sides of the pond.Īnother compelling tidbit of the safety pin lore was that it was not necessarily invented after Brexit. She decided that a safety pin was the simplest solution.Īn interesting parallel between the UK and U.S. One woman has found a simple way to show solidarity against racism - wear a safety has started the hashtag #SafetyPin which has been shared nearly 30,000 times.Īngered by the stories of racism, she used Twitter to find a way of showing her frustration. ![]() There have been reports of racist abuse in the UK since the referendum result. In roughly the same timeframe as the American election, Brexit (the United Kingdom's vote to leave the European Union on 23 June 2016) inspired a seemingly organic movement covered at the time by the BBC: Wearing a Safety pin- as a sign that you are a safe haven for those who don't feel safe post-Election. The safety pin meme got a boost from some popular Twitter accounts: ![]() In the words of the Twitter user who launched the trend, the idea was “that anyone against the sort of nationalistic, racist violence we’ve been seeing could identify themselves as a ‘safe ally.’” The safety pin was adopted in England after the Brexit vote, as immigrants and people of color found themselves increasingly subject to racist attacks, serving as a visual symbol indicating that the wearer supports tolerance and stands in solidarity with marginalized groups. Now that we’ve established that something as bad as Brexit could happen here, Americans are adopting strategies learned from their British peers in coping with its aftermath.Īs stories of post-election violence and hate speech circulate online, some people have begun wearing safety pins to identify themselves as allies in the fight against intolerance, and to show solidarity with women, LGBT people, immigrants, and people of color feeling frightened by Trump’s presidency and the vitriol that some of his supporters display. On 11 November 2016, NY Mag reported on the phenomenon, saying: Like most semi-ambiguous social issue fads, the sudden appearance of safety pins proved both tremendously popular and confusing. Most social media users began spotting (or employing) images of a safety pin after the 8 November 2016 election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, a meme that purportedly aimed to subtly signal solidarity among those who had not supported his candidacy.
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