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This is the write up on gang signals from wiki. Bolded text and links are mine.

Gangs often establish distinctive, characteristic identifiers including graffiti tags[18] colors (red, white and blue), hand-signals, clothing, jewelry, hair styles, fingernails, slogans[911,support the troops,], signs such as the swastika, the noose, or the burning cross[20], flags for example the Confederate flag, secret greetings (or meetings), slurs(terrorists, liberals), or code words (freedom, WMD,intelligence) and other group-specific symbols associated with the gang’s common beliefs, rituals, and mythologies to define and differentiate themselves from rival groups and gangs.[]As an alternative language, signs, symbols, and slurs in speech, graffiti, print, music, or other mediums communicate specific informational cues used to threaten, disparage, taunt, harass, intimidate, alarm, influence[23], or exact specific responses including obedience, submission, fear, or terror. One study focused on terrorism and symbols states: “… Symbolism is important because it plays a part in impelling the terrorist to act and then in defining the targets of their actions.”[24] Displaying a gang sign, such as the noose, as a symbolic act can be construed as “… a threat to commit violence communicated with the intent to terrorize another, to cause evacuation of a building, or to cause serious public inconvenience, in reckless disregard of the risk of causing such terror or inconvenience…an offense against property or involving danger to another person that may include but is not limited to recklessly endangering another person, harassment, stalking, ethnic intimidation, and criminal mischief.”[25] [Read more…] about Gangs or… “Torture? What Torture?”