Coexist bumper sticker

Perhaps you’ve seen this bumper sticker on someone’s car. Maybe you’re wondering: why is “Coexist” written in a menagerie of symbols? There are many different interpretations of these symbols. We will take apart this symbol to its fundamental letters today:

  • C – This is the star of Islam, symbolizing Muhammad’s teachings;
  • O – A peace symbol, symbolizing peace;
  • E – A somewhat of a merger between male and female, symbolizing respect and love between sexes;
  • X – More like a star, but it is the six-pointed Star of David, symbolizing Jesus’ love and sacrifice for mankind;
  • I – The dot on top of the lowercase “i” is a pentagram, mostly affiliated with Wiccans and the occult, symbolizing all things dark and evil;
  • S – The Chinese Yin-and-yang, symbolizing balance; and
  • T – What appears to be the cross, this is a symbol of Christianity and Jesus’ sacrifice for mankind

If we translate the above ideas directly into a sentence, then we get something like this:

“Islamic, peaceful male and female Jews should tolerate evil, with a balance like Christians”

This sentence may seem like random junk, but some meaning is expressed from the bumper sticker. First of all, all the symbols are in one word. Secondly, the symbols fall into three categories: religions, sexes, or ideas. This should mean that all races, whether Islamic, Jewish, or Christian; male or female, should exist in peace (O) and harmony (S). In other words, peoples of all kinds should coexist.

This bumper sticker has caused much controversy though. For example, a new bumper sticker came out as a parody. It closely resembles the Coexist sticker seen above, however, the “E” is substituted as a hammer and sickle (communism) and the X is a swastika (Nazism.) The message of that bumper sticker is that true coexistence is coexistence with not just good people but radicals as well.

The first bumper sticker is optimistic, the second is pessimistic and advises caution.

Published by Geoffrey Liu

A software engineer by trade and a classical musician at heart. Currently a software engineer at Groupon getting into iOS mobile development. Recently graduated from the University of Washington, with a degree in Computer Science and a minor in Music. Web development has been my passion for many years. I am also greatly interested in UI/UX design, teaching, cooking, biking, and collecting posters.

5 thoughts on “COEXIST

  1. Just to clear some thing up. When going through the meanings of all the symbols above it is said that the dot over the “i” the symbol being a pentagram is affiliated with Wiccans and the occult symbolizing all things dark and evil. I am here to say while I love the coexist symbol I believe that the wiccan religion is a not a bad religion. The pentegram with the point of the star upright is not bad. The symbol is actually meant to represent the 4 representations of water, earth, fire, and air. The fifth point is meant to represent spirit. The only time the pentgram is meant as an evil spirit is when it is used in satanism. There is a big difference between Wiccan and satanism. There are a lot of people that think that wiccan is wrong and evil but you will never really know until you look into it.

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