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Skinhead
| Article
# : |
18263 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
10 / 1990 |
2,744 Words |
| Author
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Daniel Gabriel
Currently an author and teach of creative writing based in St.
Paul, Minnesota, Daniel Gabriel holds a masters degree in
crosscultural studies. This article is based upon his travels
to Sumatra. |
In the past few years, more than a thousand skinheads have appeared in cities across America, spreading like a chancre sore on the body politic. Reports of brawls, intimidation, and random violence have followed in their wake. In Chicago they draw swastikas on city walls and have been blamed for the defacing of a new Holocaust memorial. In Los Angeles, they first appeared in the early eighties and were not initially connected with fascism. Some (including blacks) were denizens of the antiracist British 2-Tone movement. Others found their role models in the world of L.A. hard-core punk, emulating singers like Henry Rollins of Black Flag or the late Darby Crash of the Germs. As time went on, links between skins and neo-Nazi groups like the White Aryan Resistance became more pronounced, and reports of racial attacks have grown.
In contrast, by the late eighties skinheads in Minneapolis had established a formal antifascist wing - the Baldies - that harked back to an early sixties gang of the same name who adopted tight, high-riding trousers and reinforced steel-toed shoes. The original Baldies - best known for fighting almost exclusively with their feet - were immortalized in 1964 by the Deacons in the Twin Cities hit "The Baldie Stomp."
So what goes around comes around; is that it? Not exactly. The real roots of the skinhead phenomenon lie in Great Britain, and if we want to understand the impetus that has brought them to our own shores, we must first cross the Atlantic.
Bovver boys and aggro mobs
Skinheads began appearing on the streets of Britain in early 1968. They initially came out of London's East End, from displaced working-class districts that were confronted with their own expendability in the battle of modern market forces. As victims of the declining need for skilled tradesmen and a concurrent rising immigration from the empire's former colonies, these youths were society's castoffs. British "skins" represented the vanguard of a lumpenproletariat backlash.
Compared with the elaborate stylization of today, their looks were rather unpretentious. Hair was often cut in a tight crewcut rather than completely shaved (long hair could be used to pull the head down in a fight). Their boots - and always, with skinheads, one looked for the boots - were simple workingmen's clodhoppers that barely rose above the ankles. Clothes were somber and unaborned: rolled-up working pants held up by braces (suspenders), button-down
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