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According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the number “83” is listed among their “numeric hate symbols” as it reportedly stands for “Hail/Heil Christ.” The ADL asserts this to be in tow with white supremacy.
On the ADL’s webpage dedicated to the number 83, it reads, “83 is a white supremacist numeric symbol that stands for ‘Heil Christ’ or ‘Hail Christ’ (the eighth letter of the alphabet is H and the third letter is C, thus 83 is ‘HC’).”
The ADL claims that said numeric symbol “is typically used by adherents of the racist and anti-Semitic religious sect known as Christian Identity,” and that the “symbol derives from the older white supremacist numeric symbol 88 (‘Heil Hitler’).”
Apparently, “Christian Identity” does have some documentation within the Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs, specifically, a 52-page document drafted in 1987 that purports the “movement is an extremist religious organization that advocates white supremacy and advocates violence against non-white races.”
Outside of the aforementioned, the ADL also goes on to allege that, “As they do with 88, white supremacists sometimes pair 83 with the number 14 (a reference to the so-called ‘Fourteen Words’ slogan), creating numeric phrases such as ‘14/83.’”
For those unfamiliar with the “Fourteen Words,” it was a phrase crafted by the late David Lane, and the words were “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” Lane died in prison in 2007 after being sentenced for a string of criminal exploits – including murder – where Lane either directly or indirectly participated while part of the terror group The Order throughout the 1980s.
However, while the ADL claims that “white supremacists sometimes pair 83 with the number 14,” there are zero visual examples provided by the ADL and internet searches for such also rendered zero results. Furthermore, Lane – again, the author of the “Fourteen Words” – was no fan of Christians whatsoever, as even the SPLC notes his “writings relentlessly targeted the Jews, Christianity, and law enforcement.”
While anecdotal in nature, having spent time in prison myself, not once had I seen a singular instance of “14/83” tattoos (or even an “83” tattoo, for that matter).
But the ADL often has a panache for generously attributing labels of racism to things that are at times not even racist. For example, numbers meant to reflect FBI crime statistics – as in, “13/52” – are considered by the group to be “racist propaganda claims by white supremacists against African-Americans.”
Yet, the term “propaganda” bears a connotation that some shared information may be misleading in nature.
The meaning behind “13/52” is in reference to black Americans making up roughly 13% of the U.S. population while making up approximately 52% of the reported homicides – and the assertion isn’t too far off.
According to census data, black Americans as of 2019 make up nearly 14% of the U.S. population while the latest available FBI crime data (also from 2019) notes that 51.2% of homicides were reportedly committed by black individuals. In short, the ADL claims that citing, albeit slightly off, FBI crime data is racist.
