A young jewish woman from our area opened a small gift from a friend over the weekend. It was a laser pointer to use for her dog. You can imagine her shock when she pressed the button and saw what she says was a swastika.
She immediately called her mother and then called us.
This is a case of perception versus reality. The laser pointer was made in China and the image is actually an ancient Buddhist symbol for luck. But what Shayna Lingel saw was a symbol of hatred embraced by a group of people that killed some of her relatives.
Lingel uses a laser pointer to play with her dog. She got this pointer as a gift from a friend. The packaging says “Made in China” and it comes with several caps and the first cap Lingel put on gave her a shock.
“I pointed it to the ground. My boyfriend was sitting right there and we both kind of stared at it like, what is that?” Lingel said. What they saw, according to Lingel, was the Nazi swastika.
“It’s not something you should take lightly,” Lingel said. “Millions of people died because of people believing in this symbol and what stood behind the symbol.”
(In her first email to us, Lingel included a link to Amazon.com which shows the type of laser pointer she received. Click here to go to the link.)
She immediately called her mother.
“I mean when I saw he picture my blood was boiling,” Doreen Marvin said. “I had family that were lost in the camps.”
But a closer look shows this symbol is different.
Dr. Nevan Fisher is an expert on asian culture and religion at Nazareth College. He laid out three images of swastika’s that he drew himself. The middle swastika he drew is the Nazi one. It’s a diamond pattern turned at an angle. The one on Lingel’s laser pointer was squared up like the image on Dr. Fisher’s right and that’s the Buddhist symbol of good luck.
“But for the western mind, not used to looking at differences, a quick glance and they all look the same,” Dr. Fisher said. “Considering context you should not be offended because this is not meant to be a (Nazi) swastika.”
But perception is reality and for Shayna, her mother and most average people, the swastika from her laser pointer only means one thing.
“If you’re going to be importing that to the United States or to Europe or anyone who has that history, that cultural understanding that that symbol is not about luck, that symbol is about hate and intolerance,” Lingel said.
Lingel isn’t sure where her friend bought the laser pointer. She did find the identical one on Amazon.com. She and her mother are trying to track down the manufacturer.
Lingel knows her friend had no intention of upsetting her, but when she’s playing with her dog, she just uses the simple red dot.
