SKINHEADS

What is the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about ‘skinhead’ ? Racism? Nazism? Fascism? Hatred and violence ? Unfortunately, these seems to be quite natural nowadays for most of us. Due to so powerful today’s media, people have been already familiarized with such a view.  A fake one.

Writing this entry I’d like to present the real image of a ‘traditional’ skinhead. I’ll describe the origins of the subculture and why it has been so badly understood.

HISTORY

A traditional skinhead finds his origins in so-called mods and rude boys. Mods was the name of a youth subculture in the United Kingdom during late 50s. After the Second World War, the Britain’s economic boom led to an increase of money possessed by young Brits. Some of them spent it mostly on fashionable clothes popularized by American soul groups, British R&B bands and some movie actors. These young people were so noticeable that they started to create a subculture among British society - a subculture called Mods. They were mostly associated with their devotion to fashion, music (ska,  rocksteady) and scooters (mainly Vespa). Mods could be divided into two groups: smooth mods (also known as peacock mods) who were less violent and usually wore the most expensive clothes and hard mods (also known as gang mods) that could be identified by their shorter hair and more British working-class image. Hard mods, because of their short hair, started to be called skinheads about 1968. Another influence on the British youth came from Jamaica. During 60’s many young people who emigrated to the United Kingdom represented another subculture, called rude boys. These were Jamaican hooligans who copied the style of gangsters from 50’s by wearing suits and hats to be more elegant. Both these groups, British mods and Jamaican rude boys, influencing each other formed a new subculture called skinheads  (remember, both white and black races contributed).

THE FUSION

Traditional skinheads inherited from mods a tradition of driving Vespa scooters and elegant, minimalistic way of clothing (Levi’s trousers, polo shirts, checked shirts, Harrington-type jackets). They were also more into ska music and interested in Jamaican reggae further known as skinhead reggae (2 Tone). 

Skinhead reggae:

The most intensive evolution of this subculture is dated for 1969. However, it didn’t last for long as with the hippie youth movement propagated by The Beatles it almost disappeared after two years.

REBIRTH OF SUBCULTURE (SECOND WAVE)

In the mid 70’s the skinhead subculture started to be visible again. It was a natural reaction for a punk subculture which was associated with putridity, dirt and stinkpots. Opposite to that, skinheads represented cleanness, discipline and strong characters. The only thing that 70’s skinheads inherited from the punk subculture was the strong negation of the surrounding reality in the social meaning. They also totally resigned from Jamaican elements replacing them with those from punk rock. The new subculture, named by the British press as punk skins, started to grow mostly among the aggressive pseudo football fans. Many of those who represented the new subculture supported the far right National Front political party which propagated anti-migration racism. National Front members formed groups which were to attack many representatives of ethnic minorities in Great Britain in the late 70’s. These members, having nothing in common with traditional skinheads, started to copy their style (minimalistic clothing, short hair) which soon led to unfair and wrong identification of both as one and the same by the British press. The second wave of a skinhead subculture was not a pure British phenomenon. It has been associated mainly with nazi-racist ideologies and was propagated by neo-fascist political parties in America, Germany and France.

Sadly, neo-nazists do not have so simple lives:

THE THIRD WAVE

'IF YOU ARE A RACIST YOU CAN’T BE A SKINHEAD!'

Along with the existing racist form of skinheads in 80’s and 90’s the new, third wave (known also as third wave ska) started to appear. Fortunately, most of the third wave groups referred to origins of the primary skinhead subculture. We can observe many new variants of this subculture, making an opposition to neo-nazists, for example such groups like SHARP (Skinheads Against Racist Prejudice) in New York, Anti-Racist Action in England or Red and Anarchist Skinheads (RASH). All of them wanted to change the image and general opinion on the whole subculture.

SUMMARY

Skinhead subculture exists almost in every European country (mainly in Russia and Germany) as well as in Japan, Brazil, USA and Canada. Nowadays the skinhead subculture takes all possible forms, from nationalist, neo-nazi-fascist, totally apolitical (Oi!), those referring to the origins of the ska music, to far left.

We have to remember that talking about real skinheads we should also take Afro-Americans into consideration. Let’s just take a look at one of the most famous and influential ska bands in the history – The Specials or Mr. Symarip:

The Specilas – Gangsters

The Specials – Skinhead Moonstomp

Mr Symarip – Skinheads Dem a Come

At the end, I’d like to recommend two movies for those who were interested by the subject:

‘This is England’ - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_England

‘Skinhead attitude’ – a documentary available on youtube in 9 parts starting here (it is in polish but the best quality version on YT)

 

What do you think about this subculture ? Has your opinion changed ? Do you find any sense in creating any subculture ?