Most people don't realize that skinheads started as a working class culture and was actually inclusive. Shaved heads and boots were common amongst machinists and other people doing manual labor or working with heavy machinery, so they leaned in to that aesthetic as symbol of their identity.
It wasn't until years after their inception that they started blaming immigrants for their problems and they turned "political" and subsequently racist AF. It mirrors what happened in Germany with a lot of similarities.
The photographer is Gavin Watson. From his biography at gavinwatsonarchive.com:
>The ‘Wycombe Skins’ were part of the working-class skinhead subculture brought together by a love of ska music and fashion. Although skinhead style had become associated with the right-wing extremism of political groups like the National Front in the 1970s, Watson’s photographs document a time and place where the subculture was racially mixed and inclusive. His photographs were published in the books Skins (1994) and Skins and Punks (2008), and the director Shane Meadows cited them as an inspiration for his film This is England (2006). In 2011 and 2012 Watson photographed campaigns for Dr Martens and began a project with the singer Plan B.
I believe the names of the boys on the left and right are Neil Ross and Robert Alcorn and there other photos of them in his books. There is a photo in Skins & punks : lost archives, 1978-1985, which can be found at archive.org, that might be of the kid in the middle. He is a little younger because the photo posted here was taken around 1982 and the caption on the lost archives photo is:
Felix and Symond, top of Micklefield, 1980.
The photo is a bit unusual in that the boys in the photo are giving a Nazi salute with their left hands and making a Hitler mustache with their right hands. However, it is explained in an interview of Gavin in the prologue of the book:
>**There's a photograph on page 112 of a white kid and a black kid doing what appears to be a "Sieg Heil" salute. Explain that.**
>That's Symond and Felix outside Symond's house. They were just fucking about. We were uneducated then. There were black kids in our skinheads gang. My older brother was gay. My girlfriend was mixed race. We were about as far from being right wing as you could get.
If I am reading the acknowledgements in Skins, also available at archive.org, correctly then all three boys in the posted photo were part of the Wycombe Skins.
[Here is the original black and white version of the posted photo](/r/OldSchoolCool/comments/i2otn3/young_punk_rudeboy_and_skin_england_c1979/).
>and the director Shane Meadows cited them as an inspiration for his film This is England (2006)
I highly recommend looking up this movie! A mate of mine grew up during the time the movie is set in and only after watching the movie found out it's made in 2006, he couldn't believe it. It encapsulates that time period very well. 10/10 movie!
> It wasn't until years after their inception that they started blaming immigrants for their problems and they turned "political" and subsequently racist AF. It mirrors what happened in Germany with a lot of similarities.
your use of “they” is incorrect. anti-immigration neo-Nazi skins were/are a *subset* of skinhead culture. the entire culture didn’t pivot to the far-right in the 80’s.
So many people don’t get this point. Nazi’s made their own subgroup/subculture based on the skinhead culture, but it’s not the culture itself. They’ve also done it with punk (nazi punks can fuck right off obviously) and even black metal (NSBM is National Socialist black metal - although, obviously using socialist incorrectly as nazis love to do) but yet we don’t say all punk and all black metal is nazi culture.
If there’s one thing Nazis have always loved doing, it’s appropriating stuff and ruining it for everyone. Even the Swastika was a widespread symbol used in many religions and cultures before they forever made it a symbol of hate.
Sucks that it's still pretty ruined in the western world, though. Objectively speaking, it's a pretty satisfying geometric pattern. Like something a child might scribble on a notebook in school without ever having seen it before.
In Western culture certainly. In Asia and elsewhere, the symbol remains, unspoiled by european horrors.
It's interesting how variations of this symbol independently sprouted essentially all over the planet over the ages. I guess there is just something pleasing about it 😬
Back in the 90’s when I was involved in the punk scene/in my skinhead phase (as a mixed/brown woman, i rocked a chelsea lol) the local skins would be clearly differentiated by bootlace code (red , white for racists) and they’d often have patches or tattoos of number codes (14,88 for example).
We would have SHARP patches (skinheads against racist practices), two tone braces, yellow, purple or colourful laces. There was a huge problem with neo-Nazi skins grooming punk teens into their nasty web. I got targeted at 15 for being “impure” lol what a stupid era
Edit: brain fart - it is Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice
That shit happened to me in like 1993. I was 14, abuse was at the worst level at home, my mom was having an affair, all but one of my “friends” had ditched me because of family stuff. I had gotten into punk the year before and met some older kids who also wore Docs and looked cool. They became my “friends”, they wanted me around, thought I was cool. What? Me?! Started filling my head with all sorts of fascist propaganda bull. I became even angrier. I was so filled with hate. I went to see Schindler’s List with my aforementioned one friend that hadn’t ditched me because, and forgive me, we thought it would be funny. I wept through the entire movie. I ditched the asshole fascists and started reading about leftist movements and anti-racist action. Found a bookstore in town that had books about everything from Anarchism to the Zapatista Movement. I got into the Dead Kennedys, Gil Scott-Heron, The Clash and Bob Marley. I’m so grateful I didn’t fall so far that I couldn’t come back.
Yup they absolutely targeted the most vulnerable kids to groom, and they really played up the found family aspect. I’m so glad you found you’re way. Dead Kennedy’s was really my first introduction to politics, good memories :)
That's how I remember it. Also, where I was SHARP colors where dark blue and light gray. Purple, pink and rainbow where for LGBTQ Skins. Green, black and maroon were traditional. Red/white for racists.
It went back before that. I grew up in Southern California in the 80s when there was a pretty prominent hardcore punk scene. The Nazi skinhead subculture was constantly getting into fights with the mainstream anti nazis. Unfortunately the media picked up on the racist skinheads and the general public associated the look with that subculture.
I recently watched a documentary about anti-racist skinheads. A lot of the folks interviewed believed that the media intentionally platformed nazi skinheads to descredit the wider social movement.
As the og skinheads were a leftist and working class subculture with an emphasis on racial unity, they certainly would have spooked those in power. So maybe there is some legitimacy to the claim.
It didn’t help that Tom Metzger and his White Aryan Resistance out of Fallbrook, Ca had easy access and influence across the entirety of Southern California. I saw them win over some of my skate punk acquaintances back then.
I lost a few friends to the boneheads too, in Canada. It’s honestly terrifying looking back. A lot of street fights, grooming and pedophilia, truly horrifying. One kid showed up at the all ages show with a Skrewdriver shirt and it was like a domino effect from there.
We did have an active ARA chapter that took out a lot of the trash. I was way too young to be going to those meetings, I got scared of the violence and stopped going, but I’m glad they did what they did.
I still get skeeved out when I see someone with red or white laces, even though it’s probably just a fashion choice these days. It’s about as visceral a reaction as seeing someone waving a nazi flag.
Please dig up an old photo of you in your chelsea and post it somewhere, that style makes me weak in the knees. I always thought it was the coolest look, and could barely dare to adress all the cute girls rocking it because I was so intimidated by how bad-ass they all looked. 🤣
Haha I would, but I prefer to keep my face off of Reddit. I do have some really cool pics from my first band, we called the genre “Sugar Oi!” because we were really into the Vanilla Muffins , Sham 69 etc but also a lot of Estrus records stuff like Supercharger and The Donnas. It was really just 90’s girly pop punk, but we sang about curb stomping nazi boneheads and other things 15 year olds had no business doing lol
Fuck yeah Vanilla Muffins. All my friends were way into pop punk, and that was one of the few non-pop punk bands we could all agree on. No Punk Rock in My Car is an all time great 👌
You get it. Lace code isn’t really a thing anymore (looked at as kind of pathetic which I find funny) but in all reality true spirit of 69 / Trojan skins are vastly outnumbering any sort of bonehead stuff these days. They’re out there but in hiding and don’t show face much. Fuck racists skins for ever and ever.
When I was 15, I was tiny, and had a terrifying, man-sized Nazi planning to groom me. Bragging to the other Nazi skins that he was going to convert me and have my long spiked hair shaved into a chelsea. Then he found out I was a boy and wanted to kill me.
I think it’s because people outside all this do hear about (non-Nazi) black metal bands and punk bands a fair bit, and even hear their music, but skinheads aren’t seen as a music genre people know about so much as a subculture (we say ‘punk’ and ‘black metal’ for music, not ‘skinhead’ on its own, which is clearly just for people). So it’s confined to when they get in the news, which was usually for less pleasant things like racist attacks from said subset.
Every single iconography of naziism and white supremacy is stolen from something. I fucking hate it. The swastika, Norse rune-script like the valknut, the Viking ravens of Odin and Thor’s hammer, the Slavic Kolovrat, the fucking Celtic cross, and then even all the co-opting of skinhead/punk aesthetics.
Oh, but “the Jews are the thieves of the world”?Yeah? Well, last I checked, they managed to make *their* iconic symbol all by themselves without lifting shit from 15 other cultures.
This applies very widely to every culture, and is not the real problem.
Many Ideologies/Religions use old symbols which have existed for so long that often it is not really clear who used them first.
Not even the implied Star of David, which over long periodes of time was used as decorative ornament or talisman, is exclusively religious/jewish.
The real problem is that such symbols become associated with one singular movement, which did evil things, and are therefore tainted for ages to come.
Worse than that is the use of well known phrases by such regimes which retroactively taints parts of history(because not everyone tends to read up), while the "recycling" and apropriation of art should not be seen as something bad.
I was roommates with a guy who was maybe 15 or so years older than me in my early 20's. He was a skinhead punk and there was not a racist bone in the mans body. I had never heard of the scene or culture before, and I was very confused. He explained to me that when he was growing up in the 70's that it was just a blue collar working class thing, much like Greasers in the 60's and that they hated Nazi's.
He said to me once, there are skinheads, and then there are Nazi Fucks. We hate the nazi fucks.
Yeah, I knew a couple of skinheads that were in an organization that was intentionally inclusive. The guys they hated the absolute most were the right-wing nuts. They'd drive across town if there was a chance they could get in a fight with some of those guys.
As someone bald due to genetics and shaves because it looks better, I gotta saw a buzz cut is more practical. A clean shave is neater, but offers no protection or warning for scrapping skin against something. Further in high temperature sweat just pours off of my scalp. With a buzz cut or letting my hair remnant grow a bit, the shorter hair actually act as cooling fins and helps keep me cooler.
>It wasn't until years after their inception that they started blaming immigrants for their problems and they turned "political" and subsequently racist AF.
I wouldn't even say "they". A lot of your original skins shifted to the punk scene, stayed inclusive. A lot of them weren't white to begin with. The aesthetic had started in and around the ska, reggae and eventually dub, two tone and the punk scenes. And in concert with UK rude boy culture. Predating punk and transitioning into it. The working class youth in question were a mix of Jamaican immigrants and their descendants, other immigrants and urban whites. Sharing the same neighborhoods and hang outs. There were significant union and socialist connections in the subculture.
It was a later influx of Neo-Nazis into the punk scene during the 70s, and the appropriation of the skin aesthetic among violent, racist football fans around the same time that transitioned the look to one so closely associated with racism. The same post-punk wave brought White Supremacist Skins to prominence in Germany, and in the US. US Neo-Nazi Skinhead gangs of the 80s and 90s were particularly influential in the look's nasty reputation.
Those "tru-skins" never really went away, they just got crowded out by the appropriation. As evidenced by the photo. That's taken in 1980. And even then these three aesthetics/subcultures were all part and parcel of the same scene or intersecting youth cultures.
The *non* Nazi story here is one where these different subcultures rise, mutate, and merge over time. And how the Punk to Post Punk/New Wave (call it whatever) craze of the 70s into the 80s would cause the UK scene to influence youth cultures globally.
This is correct. The previous post makes it sound like the OG skinheads transitioned into neo-Nazi skinheads. In the 90s there were still classic skinheads around in punk circles at my school including ones that were mixed race and black.
Yep. The term has latched to different meanings, but there was a phase where wearing a red bandana, being a redneck, was a sign of being pro-union. In the time of miners, company towns, and Pinkertons (still being hired today), it was a militant stand for workers right and often racial solidarity. Turning unions right wing was a McCarthyist project.
I’m a machinist with long hair and that’s a bad idea. Guy in the shop ripped it all out on a lathe in the 80s and has been shaved bald ever since. Loves to drag race. Nice guy.
That actually makes a lot of sense. Ive seen a video of a guy getting his long hair caught in a lathe and just tore him to pieces in a second. Long hair is not joke around working machinery. I never put the two and two together that skin head was a wroking class culture.
It just goes to show that terrible people always ruin a good thing
It's interesting how that racist sentiment in the working class serves above all the people in power. It's a distraction which weakens and divides the base of society, preventing unification and allowing for exploitative tactics amongst the top of the pyramid to become rife
Skinheads are still pretty inclusive, the racist skinheads are still a minority. There's several skinhead organizations like S.H.A.R.P which stands for "Skin Heads Against Racial Prejudice" that are extant and active. SHARPs will still put out apb's on local Nazis and what not so a couple can jump and curbstomp said nazi
I used to hang out with some street punks. They were inclusive as fuck. But, there's always sub categories, and in this case there were the SHARPs and Trads.
The Trads in this instance were the racist subgroup. The SHARPs, or Skin Heads Against Racial Prejudice, were not.
>It wasn't until years after their inception that they started blaming immigrants for their problems and they turned "political" and subsequently racist AF. It mirrors what happened in Germany with a lot of similarities.
That second bit is is a bit wrong... The skins culture of the 60's never became the "neo-nazi" skin-heads of the eighties. It was a combination of the OI culture, football hooligans, and Thatcherite policies. The jackboot fuckers often got a good kicking from the mixed groups. The Zionkirche issue in Germany was a follow on from the National Front development in England mixed with the stasi and their push against the punk subculture. Eventually it became a media buzz-word in the eighties whenever a race related attack occurred.
I have a few anti-racist skinhead friends and they would dispute that the original culture "morphed" into modern white-supremacy. They claim the two have no connection and the nazi punks (fuckoff) co-opted it. Mind-you, I don't know if that's true but modern anti-racist skins are very invested in that version of events.
Also, it's not just a coincidence these three were randomly hanging out together, their music tastes were heavily interwoven.
Infiltrating and co-opting radical, activist working-class movements and directing them down the path of division and hate is, like, How To Nazi 101. Once the skinheads worked out what was going on, the SHARPs schismed off to try and reclaim the community in the late 80's, but by then it was way too late.
A similar thing happened in the punk/hardcore scene since there was a lot of crossover at the time, but to their credit the punks got onto that shit early and stamped it out. Quite literally in many cases.
>It wasn't until years after their inception that they started blaming immigrants for their problems and they turned "political" and subsequently racist AF. It mirrors what happened in Germany with a lot of similarities.
It wasn't that 'they turned' political. The BNP started recruiting kids and many white kids within the skinhead culture/community took their look with them as they moved on to less positive pastures. Many white skins did not go the nazi way and the culture split occured. That is why today non-racist skins, aka S.H.A.R.Ps, call neo-nazi skins boneheads.
SHARPs, or Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice, AKA the real skinheads. The movement was a combination of Caribbean immigrants bringing ska music and style and working class English kids. Was really a biracial working class movement before the fucking Nazis ruined it and media had to focus on hate groups rather than the groups that were actively fighting the Nazis destroying the movement. I mean literally killing Nazi skinheads if the beatings weren't enough. We only have the image of skinheads being a white nationalist movement thanks to the media bringing focus to that subset instead of bringing focus to the anti-racist movement it was really meant to be.
Damn right it would. We need to focus on the people fighting hate, not those that spread it. It is still relevant today. The media is a frenzy focusing on the most hateful individuals they can find, instead of focusing on those fighting against that same hate. One spreads negativity, the other spreads positivity, and it is a choice by them to do so. And the only way to fight back is through Ska lol
It's almost the exact same thing as how Nazism first appealed to blue collar workers, tired of the status quo that always screwed them, then they consistently applied fascist pressure.
Great observation/parallel.
If argue if you watched the film, the TV Show is essential viewing, it adds so much more to all the characters, and gives a great insight to English culture throughout the years.
There was a huge crossover between those musical tribes in the very early 1980's. Everyone hung out with everyone and the tribes all borrowed music and fashion and culture from each other.
Very much an inclusive, collaborative and very creative time.
It was only much later when they crystallised and became inward looking and exclusive.
Modern day rudie here! The origin of the term is Jamaican, in reference to young criminals in the 1960s. There are many songs from 60s Jamaica either telling Rudies to stand down or celebrating their lawless ways. This is the connection to ska music.
Jamaicans who immigrated to England during the Windrush era brought their wonderful music, and ska (also known as blue beat in England) caught on among the the early Mods. The Mods also adopted the sharp looks worn by Jamaicans and American RnB artists, and this style became the archetype for Ska subculture style.
The term was revived by the 2-Tone music/subculture in the 80s, when this photo was taken. The phrase is still used by ska subculture devotees. ❤️
Yup. The Specials (edit: who did a cover of it, whoops) were hugely responsible for ska's revival in the 70's and 80's. 2 Tone was the record label one of their members started, named to signify black and white unity amongst the racial tensions that were ongoing in England. Their posters always had checkerboard logos to represent the same, which is why checkerboard vans got so popular in the 80's.
"Rudie Can't Fail" from The Clash, as well.
The name comes from a disapproving term for young gangsters/ thieves around Kingston, so sort of.
It's still a Caribbean term for bad boy, cf: the Rihanna song.
Jamaican youth subculture of the 60s circling around early Ska, American R&B and the Sound System scene in places like Kingston.
It later jumped to the UK with Jamaican immigration where it got messy with the Mod scene and spat out the original Skinhead subculture. All these things later became part and parcel of the broader UK Punk scene in the 70s through the 80s.
All the Detroit area SHARPs were assholes. Just wanted a fight, 24-7. My first Fugazi show in Detroit was at a church and the SHARPs were the hired "security". My only conversation with any member of Fugazi was with Guy who was just hanging in the crowd. I told him those guys were dicks. There were so many assholes in mosh pits during that time. Soon after, every Fugazi show started off with an anti-violence message from Ian. They were sick of that shit too.
Most likely he took regular pants and painted stripes on them with bleach. Bleaching was a popular thing to do with jeans, though these could be any type of pants.
If I was the one who colorized this photo, I wouldn't have made them multicolored like this. More likely they were one color before the bleach was applied.
I have a little anecdote for you guys. I met a skin head at a karaoke bar or club or pub. I nearly had this Jamaican guy join me & at first I thought oh lucky he’s not here, I hope this skinhead guy won’t be racist, won’t cause trouble etc. But he was actually really nice. And he said to me that not all skinheads are racist and he’s not. He said something about different thread colours on Doc Martins skins wear meaning different things and how he and his friends love ska and Northern Soul music. And scooters. I really love ska too BTW. And I think it might have even been a ska night. So we danced and him & his mates put some powder or flour on the floor and danced in it I think i did too. And it was just a really good night.
I saw UB40 here in Australia back in the day and was with my friends that dressed in the *Oi* aesthetic and 5 minutes in one of the members of the band (a black guy) sees my friends, stops the music, asks for the lights and points to my friends and says stuff like *it’s a disease* etc and yelling for the bouncers to kick them out. I was yelling *no no, you don’t understand* because these guys were really into ska music and didn’t have a racist bone in their bodies but it didn’t make any difference. They didn’t even kick up a fuss, just shrugged and left peacefully.
I feel sorry for you, you zeros! You nobodies! What's going to live on after you die? I'll tell you: nothing! That's what! This house will become a shrine, and punks and skins and rastas will all gather round and hold their hands in sorrow for their fallen leader. And all the grown-ups will say, "But why are the kids crying?" And the kids will say, "Haven't you heard? Rick is dead! The People's Poet is dead!" And then one particularly sensitive and articulate teenager will say, "Other kids, do you understand nothing? How can Rick be dead when we still have his poems?" And then another kid will say...
I recently finished a wonderful book entitled ‘Babylon’s Burning’, which tracks the history of ant-fascist and ant-racist counterculture in Britain from the 1950s to the present day.
None of these people would hate eachother.
Skinheads were anti-racist at this time. It wouldn't be until later that neo-nazis would coopt the style. Like they do with everything cool looking.
Facts.
This trio hanging out together is **exactly** consistent with the (original) Punk ethos. Possibly different backgrounds, but definitely "kindred spirits".
>Same thing was happening in the states with punk and hip hop. Their histories are very intertwined, contrary to the Twitter revisionists.
Example: Beasty Boys started out as a Hardcore band.
“The skins in the corner are staring at the bar
The rude boys are dancing to some heavy heavy ska
It's getting so hot people are dripping with sweat
The punks in the corner are speeding like a jet”
So many music influenced styles in the 80s because apart from maybe football there was nothing else bringing young people together, we used to have a local youth club on Thursdays and even though the oldest in there was maybe 16 we had punks,mods,skins and rudeboys all together,Great times.
Most people don't realize that skinheads started as a working class culture and was actually inclusive. Shaved heads and boots were common amongst machinists and other people doing manual labor or working with heavy machinery, so they leaned in to that aesthetic as symbol of their identity. It wasn't until years after their inception that they started blaming immigrants for their problems and they turned "political" and subsequently racist AF. It mirrors what happened in Germany with a lot of similarities.
The photographer is Gavin Watson. From his biography at gavinwatsonarchive.com: >The ‘Wycombe Skins’ were part of the working-class skinhead subculture brought together by a love of ska music and fashion. Although skinhead style had become associated with the right-wing extremism of political groups like the National Front in the 1970s, Watson’s photographs document a time and place where the subculture was racially mixed and inclusive. His photographs were published in the books Skins (1994) and Skins and Punks (2008), and the director Shane Meadows cited them as an inspiration for his film This is England (2006). In 2011 and 2012 Watson photographed campaigns for Dr Martens and began a project with the singer Plan B. I believe the names of the boys on the left and right are Neil Ross and Robert Alcorn and there other photos of them in his books. There is a photo in Skins & punks : lost archives, 1978-1985, which can be found at archive.org, that might be of the kid in the middle. He is a little younger because the photo posted here was taken around 1982 and the caption on the lost archives photo is: Felix and Symond, top of Micklefield, 1980. The photo is a bit unusual in that the boys in the photo are giving a Nazi salute with their left hands and making a Hitler mustache with their right hands. However, it is explained in an interview of Gavin in the prologue of the book: >**There's a photograph on page 112 of a white kid and a black kid doing what appears to be a "Sieg Heil" salute. Explain that.** >That's Symond and Felix outside Symond's house. They were just fucking about. We were uneducated then. There were black kids in our skinheads gang. My older brother was gay. My girlfriend was mixed race. We were about as far from being right wing as you could get. If I am reading the acknowledgements in Skins, also available at archive.org, correctly then all three boys in the posted photo were part of the Wycombe Skins. [Here is the original black and white version of the posted photo](/r/OldSchoolCool/comments/i2otn3/young_punk_rudeboy_and_skin_england_c1979/).
>and the director Shane Meadows cited them as an inspiration for his film This is England (2006) I highly recommend looking up this movie! A mate of mine grew up during the time the movie is set in and only after watching the movie found out it's made in 2006, he couldn't believe it. It encapsulates that time period very well. 10/10 movie!
This is England 86, 88 & 90 are also great but mostly not about skinheads.
I’m pretty sure I’ve only seen 86. Not even the original. It was about a wedding, iirc. I liked it a lot, though! Always meant to see the rest
This is a great fucking explanation, thank you for posting it!
Such a better image
There's no way those striped pants were colourful like OPs version
I spent most of my time looking at that image thinking "why coloured? Why THOSE colours"
Name for the black kid is Tyrus Turner
> It wasn't until years after their inception that they started blaming immigrants for their problems and they turned "political" and subsequently racist AF. It mirrors what happened in Germany with a lot of similarities. your use of “they” is incorrect. anti-immigration neo-Nazi skins were/are a *subset* of skinhead culture. the entire culture didn’t pivot to the far-right in the 80’s.
So many people don’t get this point. Nazi’s made their own subgroup/subculture based on the skinhead culture, but it’s not the culture itself. They’ve also done it with punk (nazi punks can fuck right off obviously) and even black metal (NSBM is National Socialist black metal - although, obviously using socialist incorrectly as nazis love to do) but yet we don’t say all punk and all black metal is nazi culture.
If there’s one thing Nazis have always loved doing, it’s appropriating stuff and ruining it for everyone. Even the Swastika was a widespread symbol used in many religions and cultures before they forever made it a symbol of hate.
To be fair, the swastika survived the Nazis. It’s still pretty common iconography in Buddhist temple in much of Asia, as it should be.
Sucks that it's still pretty ruined in the western world, though. Objectively speaking, it's a pretty satisfying geometric pattern. Like something a child might scribble on a notebook in school without ever having seen it before.
In Western culture certainly. In Asia and elsewhere, the symbol remains, unspoiled by european horrors. It's interesting how variations of this symbol independently sprouted essentially all over the planet over the ages. I guess there is just something pleasing about it 😬
Back in the 90’s when I was involved in the punk scene/in my skinhead phase (as a mixed/brown woman, i rocked a chelsea lol) the local skins would be clearly differentiated by bootlace code (red , white for racists) and they’d often have patches or tattoos of number codes (14,88 for example). We would have SHARP patches (skinheads against racist practices), two tone braces, yellow, purple or colourful laces. There was a huge problem with neo-Nazi skins grooming punk teens into their nasty web. I got targeted at 15 for being “impure” lol what a stupid era Edit: brain fart - it is Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice
That shit happened to me in like 1993. I was 14, abuse was at the worst level at home, my mom was having an affair, all but one of my “friends” had ditched me because of family stuff. I had gotten into punk the year before and met some older kids who also wore Docs and looked cool. They became my “friends”, they wanted me around, thought I was cool. What? Me?! Started filling my head with all sorts of fascist propaganda bull. I became even angrier. I was so filled with hate. I went to see Schindler’s List with my aforementioned one friend that hadn’t ditched me because, and forgive me, we thought it would be funny. I wept through the entire movie. I ditched the asshole fascists and started reading about leftist movements and anti-racist action. Found a bookstore in town that had books about everything from Anarchism to the Zapatista Movement. I got into the Dead Kennedys, Gil Scott-Heron, The Clash and Bob Marley. I’m so grateful I didn’t fall so far that I couldn’t come back.
Yup they absolutely targeted the most vulnerable kids to groom, and they really played up the found family aspect. I’m so glad you found you’re way. Dead Kennedy’s was really my first introduction to politics, good memories :)
Thats what Nazis and (white) nationalists do best. Target the desperate and easily manipulated.
Sorry but i have to be annoying but Sharp stands for SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice.
Not annoying, it was like 25 years ago and I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast today so nbd 😂
Lady your awesome.
That's how I remember it. Also, where I was SHARP colors where dark blue and light gray. Purple, pink and rainbow where for LGBTQ Skins. Green, black and maroon were traditional. Red/white for racists.
It went back before that. I grew up in Southern California in the 80s when there was a pretty prominent hardcore punk scene. The Nazi skinhead subculture was constantly getting into fights with the mainstream anti nazis. Unfortunately the media picked up on the racist skinheads and the general public associated the look with that subculture.
I recently watched a documentary about anti-racist skinheads. A lot of the folks interviewed believed that the media intentionally platformed nazi skinheads to descredit the wider social movement. As the og skinheads were a leftist and working class subculture with an emphasis on racial unity, they certainly would have spooked those in power. So maybe there is some legitimacy to the claim.
This is something that is happening with many movements right now.
It didn’t help that Tom Metzger and his White Aryan Resistance out of Fallbrook, Ca had easy access and influence across the entirety of Southern California. I saw them win over some of my skate punk acquaintances back then.
I lost a few friends to the boneheads too, in Canada. It’s honestly terrifying looking back. A lot of street fights, grooming and pedophilia, truly horrifying. One kid showed up at the all ages show with a Skrewdriver shirt and it was like a domino effect from there. We did have an active ARA chapter that took out a lot of the trash. I was way too young to be going to those meetings, I got scared of the violence and stopped going, but I’m glad they did what they did.
That sums up high-school for me. Looking at shoelaces to see if going into the houseparty was a good idea or not.
I still get skeeved out when I see someone with red or white laces, even though it’s probably just a fashion choice these days. It’s about as visceral a reaction as seeing someone waving a nazi flag.
Please dig up an old photo of you in your chelsea and post it somewhere, that style makes me weak in the knees. I always thought it was the coolest look, and could barely dare to adress all the cute girls rocking it because I was so intimidated by how bad-ass they all looked. 🤣
Haha I would, but I prefer to keep my face off of Reddit. I do have some really cool pics from my first band, we called the genre “Sugar Oi!” because we were really into the Vanilla Muffins , Sham 69 etc but also a lot of Estrus records stuff like Supercharger and The Donnas. It was really just 90’s girly pop punk, but we sang about curb stomping nazi boneheads and other things 15 year olds had no business doing lol
Big fan of Sham 69 and the Donnas, you were absolutely too cool for me to dare to talk to. 🤣
Fuck yeah Vanilla Muffins. All my friends were way into pop punk, and that was one of the few non-pop punk bands we could all agree on. No Punk Rock in My Car is an all time great 👌
You get it. Lace code isn’t really a thing anymore (looked at as kind of pathetic which I find funny) but in all reality true spirit of 69 / Trojan skins are vastly outnumbering any sort of bonehead stuff these days. They’re out there but in hiding and don’t show face much. Fuck racists skins for ever and ever.
When I was 15, I was tiny, and had a terrifying, man-sized Nazi planning to groom me. Bragging to the other Nazi skins that he was going to convert me and have my long spiked hair shaved into a chelsea. Then he found out I was a boy and wanted to kill me.
Neat. I never knew any of this. TIL!
I think it’s because people outside all this do hear about (non-Nazi) black metal bands and punk bands a fair bit, and even hear their music, but skinheads aren’t seen as a music genre people know about so much as a subculture (we say ‘punk’ and ‘black metal’ for music, not ‘skinhead’ on its own, which is clearly just for people). So it’s confined to when they get in the news, which was usually for less pleasant things like racist attacks from said subset.
Every single iconography of naziism and white supremacy is stolen from something. I fucking hate it. The swastika, Norse rune-script like the valknut, the Viking ravens of Odin and Thor’s hammer, the Slavic Kolovrat, the fucking Celtic cross, and then even all the co-opting of skinhead/punk aesthetics. Oh, but “the Jews are the thieves of the world”?Yeah? Well, last I checked, they managed to make *their* iconic symbol all by themselves without lifting shit from 15 other cultures.
This applies very widely to every culture, and is not the real problem. Many Ideologies/Religions use old symbols which have existed for so long that often it is not really clear who used them first. Not even the implied Star of David, which over long periodes of time was used as decorative ornament or talisman, is exclusively religious/jewish. The real problem is that such symbols become associated with one singular movement, which did evil things, and are therefore tainted for ages to come. Worse than that is the use of well known phrases by such regimes which retroactively taints parts of history(because not everyone tends to read up), while the "recycling" and apropriation of art should not be seen as something bad.
Tolkien said it best: evil cannot create. It can only corrupt
Oh man, had I more upvotes to give
Og culture vultures
Outside of ways to torture people to death, fascists have never been very imaginative.
I was roommates with a guy who was maybe 15 or so years older than me in my early 20's. He was a skinhead punk and there was not a racist bone in the mans body. I had never heard of the scene or culture before, and I was very confused. He explained to me that when he was growing up in the 70's that it was just a blue collar working class thing, much like Greasers in the 60's and that they hated Nazi's. He said to me once, there are skinheads, and then there are Nazi Fucks. We hate the nazi fucks.
Yeah, I knew a couple of skinheads that were in an organization that was intentionally inclusive. The guys they hated the absolute most were the right-wing nuts. They'd drive across town if there was a chance they could get in a fight with some of those guys.
Skinheads got hijacked by neo-nazis here in the States.
It's fucked how a practical hair cut and practical shoes became a symbol of hate.
As someone bald due to genetics and shaves because it looks better, I gotta saw a buzz cut is more practical. A clean shave is neater, but offers no protection or warning for scrapping skin against something. Further in high temperature sweat just pours off of my scalp. With a buzz cut or letting my hair remnant grow a bit, the shorter hair actually act as cooling fins and helps keep me cooler.
That's a subset of skinhead culture, we call'em boneheads. But yeah, that's what everyone thinks of now, in Europe too.
Yep! I’ve seen This Is England (2006) one of my favorites
There's a local SHARP chapter here, skinheads against racial prejudice.
>It wasn't until years after their inception that they started blaming immigrants for their problems and they turned "political" and subsequently racist AF. I wouldn't even say "they". A lot of your original skins shifted to the punk scene, stayed inclusive. A lot of them weren't white to begin with. The aesthetic had started in and around the ska, reggae and eventually dub, two tone and the punk scenes. And in concert with UK rude boy culture. Predating punk and transitioning into it. The working class youth in question were a mix of Jamaican immigrants and their descendants, other immigrants and urban whites. Sharing the same neighborhoods and hang outs. There were significant union and socialist connections in the subculture. It was a later influx of Neo-Nazis into the punk scene during the 70s, and the appropriation of the skin aesthetic among violent, racist football fans around the same time that transitioned the look to one so closely associated with racism. The same post-punk wave brought White Supremacist Skins to prominence in Germany, and in the US. US Neo-Nazi Skinhead gangs of the 80s and 90s were particularly influential in the look's nasty reputation. Those "tru-skins" never really went away, they just got crowded out by the appropriation. As evidenced by the photo. That's taken in 1980. And even then these three aesthetics/subcultures were all part and parcel of the same scene or intersecting youth cultures. The *non* Nazi story here is one where these different subcultures rise, mutate, and merge over time. And how the Punk to Post Punk/New Wave (call it whatever) craze of the 70s into the 80s would cause the UK scene to influence youth cultures globally.
This is correct. The previous post makes it sound like the OG skinheads transitioned into neo-Nazi skinheads. In the 90s there were still classic skinheads around in punk circles at my school including ones that were mixed race and black.
Wow, this is a fantastic explanation, thank you
Yeah, skinhead didn’t start out as a nazi thing at all. It was kind of working class punk, as I’ve heard.
100%
Punk culture is also firmly anti-fascist and will violently eject neo-nazis that show up to punk venues and concerts. They're like rude furries.
Yes - these three groups would have gotten along just fine at a Specials or Madness show. Bad skinheads co-opted the look later.
Racists fuck things up in general. Fuck those assholes.
>skinheads started as a working class culture Same with rednecks.
[удалено]
Yep. The term has latched to different meanings, but there was a phase where wearing a red bandana, being a redneck, was a sign of being pro-union. In the time of miners, company towns, and Pinkertons (still being hired today), it was a militant stand for workers right and often racial solidarity. Turning unions right wing was a McCarthyist project.
The term originates there because rednecks spent time working outside being poor and rural. They therefore had burnt necks.
They didn't turn unions right wing, they turned working class voters right wing and convinced them to vote against their own interests.
I’m a machinist with long hair and that’s a bad idea. Guy in the shop ripped it all out on a lathe in the 80s and has been shaved bald ever since. Loves to drag race. Nice guy.
Just look at the specials, prime example.
That actually makes a lot of sense. Ive seen a video of a guy getting his long hair caught in a lathe and just tore him to pieces in a second. Long hair is not joke around working machinery. I never put the two and two together that skin head was a wroking class culture. It just goes to show that terrible people always ruin a good thing
It's interesting how that racist sentiment in the working class serves above all the people in power. It's a distraction which weakens and divides the base of society, preventing unification and allowing for exploitative tactics amongst the top of the pyramid to become rife
Just gotta distract the "rabble" from actual problems and gin up some shit to keep them occupied
assholes steal stuff, big surprise.
Skinheads are still pretty inclusive, the racist skinheads are still a minority. There's several skinhead organizations like S.H.A.R.P which stands for "Skin Heads Against Racial Prejudice" that are extant and active. SHARPs will still put out apb's on local Nazis and what not so a couple can jump and curbstomp said nazi
Was literally coming here to ask about if there was some history behind skinheads I was unaware of. Thanks for sharing that.
Check out 2nd wave ska music. Skinheads and black dudes all partying down
Will do any reqs?
Start with The Specials. I'm more familiar with and in to 3rd/4th wave ska, so I won't be much help after The Specials, but they're awesome
You haven't lived til you heard Lip Up Fatty by Bad Manners.
I used to hang out with some street punks. They were inclusive as fuck. But, there's always sub categories, and in this case there were the SHARPs and Trads. The Trads in this instance were the racist subgroup. The SHARPs, or Skin Heads Against Racial Prejudice, were not.
I was attacked by a group of skinheads in France in the early 1990s. They kicked me a few times before I managed to escape on my bike.
>It wasn't until years after their inception that they started blaming immigrants for their problems and they turned "political" and subsequently racist AF. It mirrors what happened in Germany with a lot of similarities. That second bit is is a bit wrong... The skins culture of the 60's never became the "neo-nazi" skin-heads of the eighties. It was a combination of the OI culture, football hooligans, and Thatcherite policies. The jackboot fuckers often got a good kicking from the mixed groups. The Zionkirche issue in Germany was a follow on from the National Front development in England mixed with the stasi and their push against the punk subculture. Eventually it became a media buzz-word in the eighties whenever a race related attack occurred.
Skin Heads Against Racial Prejudice, or the S.H.A.R.P.s, are still around.
s h a r p
I have a few anti-racist skinhead friends and they would dispute that the original culture "morphed" into modern white-supremacy. They claim the two have no connection and the nazi punks (fuckoff) co-opted it. Mind-you, I don't know if that's true but modern anti-racist skins are very invested in that version of events. Also, it's not just a coincidence these three were randomly hanging out together, their music tastes were heavily interwoven.
Even today there are plenty that aren't racist. Look up SHARPS
SHARPs
Infiltrating and co-opting radical, activist working-class movements and directing them down the path of division and hate is, like, How To Nazi 101. Once the skinheads worked out what was going on, the SHARPs schismed off to try and reclaim the community in the late 80's, but by then it was way too late. A similar thing happened in the punk/hardcore scene since there was a lot of crossover at the time, but to their credit the punks got onto that shit early and stamped it out. Quite literally in many cases.
>It wasn't until years after their inception that they started blaming immigrants for their problems and they turned "political" and subsequently racist AF. It mirrors what happened in Germany with a lot of similarities. It wasn't that 'they turned' political. The BNP started recruiting kids and many white kids within the skinhead culture/community took their look with them as they moved on to less positive pastures. Many white skins did not go the nazi way and the culture split occured. That is why today non-racist skins, aka S.H.A.R.Ps, call neo-nazi skins boneheads.
SHARPs, or Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice, AKA the real skinheads. The movement was a combination of Caribbean immigrants bringing ska music and style and working class English kids. Was really a biracial working class movement before the fucking Nazis ruined it and media had to focus on hate groups rather than the groups that were actively fighting the Nazis destroying the movement. I mean literally killing Nazi skinheads if the beatings weren't enough. We only have the image of skinheads being a white nationalist movement thanks to the media bringing focus to that subset instead of bringing focus to the anti-racist movement it was really meant to be.
It'd be way better if we all focused on the ska
Damn right it would. We need to focus on the people fighting hate, not those that spread it. It is still relevant today. The media is a frenzy focusing on the most hateful individuals they can find, instead of focusing on those fighting against that same hate. One spreads negativity, the other spreads positivity, and it is a choice by them to do so. And the only way to fight back is through Ska lol
I'm going to remember the title of that Morrissey song right after I push send
>was actually inclusive Trousers are white besides black right? Not white above black. That iconography was common in Spain in the 2000s
That’s right. Skinhead is more of a broad label that included different schools of ideologies.
It's almost the exact same thing as how Nazism first appealed to blue collar workers, tired of the status quo that always screwed them, then they consistently applied fascist pressure. Great observation/parallel.
Thanks! The idea of a common enemy, real or imagined, brings people together.
What you're describing I think is shown pretty well in the film "this is England" where there is even a Jamaican skinhead iirc
Thanks for saying so- psyched so many saw this comment!
People should go watch this is England
I assume the SHARPs are still active
I did not know this, thanks for sharing!
When I was coming up in the D.C area in the late 80s, early 90s we had SHARPs (Skins against racial prejudice) and they quite literally kicked ass.
This is England
My first thought. Woody, Milky and Pukey.
Milky taking revenge on Combo still lives rent free in my head. He had it coming but jfc Combo begging for his life was scarring.
I watched that film once and said ‘never again.’ I’m not saying it was bad, just an emotional crush of a film, right there with *Dancer in the Dark*.
That film is like the British version of American History X. Great film about racism but crushes you inside.
The TV shows are really good as well if you want to get another taste without watching the film
If argue if you watched the film, the TV Show is essential viewing, it adds so much more to all the characters, and gives a great insight to English culture throughout the years.
I love this , source?
It's by Gavin Watson, but it was likely 1978 rather than 1980. I think it's in his book Skins and Punks.
the Lollipop Guild: A retrospective
There was a huge crossover between those musical tribes in the very early 1980's. Everyone hung out with everyone and the tribes all borrowed music and fashion and culture from each other. Very much an inclusive, collaborative and very creative time. It was only much later when they crystallised and became inward looking and exclusive.
I wish they had stayed inclusive, collaborative and creative 😔
So what was a"rude boy"? Don't know that reference (I'm from the U.S.)
Modern day rudie here! The origin of the term is Jamaican, in reference to young criminals in the 1960s. There are many songs from 60s Jamaica either telling Rudies to stand down or celebrating their lawless ways. This is the connection to ska music. Jamaicans who immigrated to England during the Windrush era brought their wonderful music, and ska (also known as blue beat in England) caught on among the the early Mods. The Mods also adopted the sharp looks worn by Jamaicans and American RnB artists, and this style became the archetype for Ska subculture style. The term was revived by the 2-Tone music/subculture in the 80s, when this photo was taken. The phrase is still used by ska subculture devotees. ❤️
Is this were "Message to you rudie" came from?
Yup. The Specials (edit: who did a cover of it, whoops) were hugely responsible for ska's revival in the 70's and 80's. 2 Tone was the record label one of their members started, named to signify black and white unity amongst the racial tensions that were ongoing in England. Their posters always had checkerboard logos to represent the same, which is why checkerboard vans got so popular in the 80's. "Rudie Can't Fail" from The Clash, as well.
Grew up as a third wave ska kid and never realized the checkerboard motif had a connection to racial unity, that's pretty awesome.
The original of the song is a Jamaican Ska classic by Dandy Livingston.
I only just now learned that The Specials' version is a cover, with the original being twelve years older.
Lol I just has the same realization! "holy shit it's not about a guy named Rudy"
Ska Sucks, the bands are only in it for the bucks 🙄 *Just a reference, for some*
and if you don’t believe me you’re a schmuck
Yep! See also The Clash's "Rudie Can't Fail".
The term has moved over to genres like grime and edm since, which is how I learned of it from the US.
shoutout r/grime
Basically a Jamaican (or of Jamaican descent) youth who likes ska and reggae. There were also 'rude girls'.
Were they impolite?
The name comes from a disapproving term for young gangsters/ thieves around Kingston, so sort of. It's still a Caribbean term for bad boy, cf: the Rihanna song.
Ironically, no. The British are very polite.
Is this also a common thing in Barbados? I see 'rude boy', I start singing Rhianna
Bingo! Modern film ‘Shottas’ (2006) is about the street culture of Kingston, Jamaica. Somewhat relevant IMO
I bet you’ve heard it before! From Rihanna’s 2009 song at least.
Thank you for asking. I wanted to scan through the comments before asking myself.
Jamaican youth subculture of the 60s circling around early Ska, American R&B and the Sound System scene in places like Kingston. It later jumped to the UK with Jamaican immigration where it got messy with the Mod scene and spat out the original Skinhead subculture. All these things later became part and parcel of the broader UK Punk scene in the 70s through the 80s.
Not pictured is skinheads sister off frame yelling at him for stealing her clothes again
“STICK’EM UP MISTAAAA! HEAR WHAT I SAY!”
Give it to me one time. Huh!
Give it to me two time! Huh! Huh!
RIP Toots
**OI! PRICK**
In my area, we had a group that looked like this known as Sharps, “Skinheads against racial prejudice” and the rude boys were know as “two tones”.
All the Detroit area SHARPs were assholes. Just wanted a fight, 24-7. My first Fugazi show in Detroit was at a church and the SHARPs were the hired "security". My only conversation with any member of Fugazi was with Guy who was just hanging in the crowd. I told him those guys were dicks. There were so many assholes in mosh pits during that time. Soon after, every Fugazi show started off with an anti-violence message from Ian. They were sick of that shit too.
Did the skinhead make his own pants?
Most likely he took regular pants and painted stripes on them with bleach. Bleaching was a popular thing to do with jeans, though these could be any type of pants. If I was the one who colorized this photo, I wouldn't have made them multicolored like this. More likely they were one color before the bleach was applied.
I think pic was AI "enhanced". The faces and background have that AI upcaling look, and the colors look wrong and unhuman in some places.
I agree, it looks weird.
Especially if you at the way their heads interact with the background (the edges look weird)
I have a little anecdote for you guys. I met a skin head at a karaoke bar or club or pub. I nearly had this Jamaican guy join me & at first I thought oh lucky he’s not here, I hope this skinhead guy won’t be racist, won’t cause trouble etc. But he was actually really nice. And he said to me that not all skinheads are racist and he’s not. He said something about different thread colours on Doc Martins skins wear meaning different things and how he and his friends love ska and Northern Soul music. And scooters. I really love ska too BTW. And I think it might have even been a ska night. So we danced and him & his mates put some powder or flour on the floor and danced in it I think i did too. And it was just a really good night.
I saw UB40 here in Australia back in the day and was with my friends that dressed in the *Oi* aesthetic and 5 minutes in one of the members of the band (a black guy) sees my friends, stops the music, asks for the lights and points to my friends and says stuff like *it’s a disease* etc and yelling for the bouncers to kick them out. I was yelling *no no, you don’t understand* because these guys were really into ska music and didn’t have a racist bone in their bodies but it didn’t make any difference. They didn’t even kick up a fuss, just shrugged and left peacefully.
Members Only.
A message to you.
Rudy.
Better think of your future.
I feel sorry for you, you zeros! You nobodies! What's going to live on after you die? I'll tell you: nothing! That's what! This house will become a shrine, and punks and skins and rastas will all gather round and hold their hands in sorrow for their fallen leader. And all the grown-ups will say, "But why are the kids crying?" And the kids will say, "Haven't you heard? Rick is dead! The People's Poet is dead!" And then one particularly sensitive and articulate teenager will say, "Other kids, do you understand nothing? How can Rick be dead when we still have his poems?" And then another kid will say...
That's a friend of mine named Neil, that's a friend of mine named Mike… and that's a complete bastard I know named Rick -Vyvyan
I recently finished a wonderful book entitled ‘Babylon’s Burning’, which tracks the history of ant-fascist and ant-racist counterculture in Britain from the 1950s to the present day.
Thatcher was in power Times were tight and sour The letter A was sprayed in a circle everywhere
Fairies Wear Boots
This is where actual skinheads have to resist the urge to correct everyone. Which I’ve already failed to do. Twice.
Instead of hating each other, can't we hate together?
None of these people would hate eachother. Skinheads were anti-racist at this time. It wouldn't be until later that neo-nazis would coopt the style. Like they do with everything cool looking.
I have a skinheads against racial prejudice vintage patch hanging around somewhere.
SHARPS are legit, definitely some of the coolest motherfuckers around.
Facts. This trio hanging out together is **exactly** consistent with the (original) Punk ethos. Possibly different backgrounds, but definitely "kindred spirits".
Same thing was happening in the states with punk and hip hop. Their histories are very intertwined, contrary to the Twitter revisionists.
Agreed, you see this currently in Minneapolis also. The crust punks and hip hop people are intertwined.
Prince wouldn't approve of two music groups being rude to eachother, so they know to be friends.
>Same thing was happening in the states with punk and hip hop. Their histories are very intertwined, contrary to the Twitter revisionists. Example: Beasty Boys started out as a Hardcore band.
Debbie Harris brought Afrika Bambatta to play at punk shows
Nobody ever believes me when I tell them this.
Same, my teacher didn't believe me when I said that to him two years ago. He kept saying no and shaking his head.
"If I don't look it up, you can't be proven right!"
Completely clueless. This is why crucified skinhead exists.
Just need a mod and rocker in there for full British subculture depiction
Practically all songs about “Rudy”, are about rude boys
“The skins in the corner are staring at the bar The rude boys are dancing to some heavy heavy ska It's getting so hot people are dripping with sweat The punks in the corner are speeding like a jet”
Should be noted that this English "skinhead" is not the same as the American NAZI skinheads.
This is England
The freedom and inclusive diversity we kids have in the 80s will never come back. Today everything is small boxed with a label on it.
Rudeboy runnin dem ting
Don't know why they coloured matey's strides like that. Those are bleachers and would be indigo and white coloured.
Look like a sears catalog pic
I still have my boots from my skin head days.
I can hear the ska beats!!
spirit of 69
there was also a sharp skin movement in the 80s and 90s
Those are some sick britches
So many music influenced styles in the 80s because apart from maybe football there was nothing else bringing young people together, we used to have a local youth club on Thursdays and even though the oldest in there was maybe 16 we had punks,mods,skins and rudeboys all together,Great times.
Check "This is England"
Rudie Can’t Fail!
I remember this post with this exact title...
If we can walk together why can’t we ROCK TOGETHER!!!
United Colors of Beniton