Slate’s Use of Your Data -
White Supremacists by the Numbers
What’s up with 14 and 88?
The skinheads had a scheme to attack the presidential candidate (Barack Obama) while
wearing white tuxedos and top hats.
They also intended to murder 88 people and behead 14 African-American children—numbers that “have special significance in the white power movement,” according to the
Times.
88 and 14. As the
Times article explained, the number 88 represents the phrase “
Heil Hitler,” because H is the eighth letter in the alphabet. White supremacists are also fond of the number 18 to represent the initials A.H. (Other tight-knit groups use a similar code: The Hells Angels, for example, are attached to
the number 81.)a
member of the Ku Klux Klan and co-founder of a white-power revolutionary group, detailed his philosophy in an article called “88 Precepts.” (Precept No. 11: “Beware of verbose doctrines.”) The number 14 refers to a 14-word mission statement he wrote while propagandizing from federal prison: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”
fyi- The number 311 refers to the Ku Klux Klan, because K is the 11th letter, repeated three times. So does 33/6—that’s three times 11, with the number six standing for the current period of the Klan’s history, which the group has divided into
six eras.