A true skinhead?

I have a question for the mass of SG members that might read this.

How many of you understand the true skinhead way of life, better yet who even knows what a true skinhead is.

Just wonder'n...

Who would - want - to rot their brains that much farther more than necessary by even trying to probe into such ignorant garbage nonsense.

--- this post assuming you mean those neo-nazi fucktarded wastes of sperm and egg.

If you are so concerned, why don't you enlighten us?

There's a group for skinheads.
Personally, I don't get the label. Why can't you just be baldheaded guys who listen to punk rock music.

[Edited on Mar 12, 2005 by madmanjo]

... we don't take kindly to bigotry around here, so I suggest you make a case for yourself and why you aren't one of the ignorant neo-nazi's, and are just a guy who keeps his head without hair and thinks he needs to label himself.
Be yourself, lose the label.

I really hope you're just a hard rockin' guy that likes to make an anti-establishment statement by sporting a shaved head or something like that. If not, then I really don't know what to say.

Annoying that people associate skinhead with nazi fucks and not ska/rudeboy/rock steady music put out by Blue Beat or Trojan.

(Skinhead is a 60s/70s movement, and is British, with links to Jamaica.)

[Edited on Mar 12, 2005 by demetrius_z]

i must say the question only poses more questions, the next one more disturbing than the last.

bring it on duckieboy! do enlighten. id like to hear your definition of a skinhead.
really. thanks.

oi,
little known fact: telly was super into dancehall music.


who loves ya baby?

Seriously, skinheads did start out as growing out of the Jamaican immigrant subculture in England. That's probably what he's referring to.

However.

He still sounded like a total dick.

I say why try to change what everybody thinks when they hear the word skinhead. It doesn't matter whether it was a movement, EVERYBODY thinks NAZI when they hear skinhead. Didn't you see American History X?

Exactly. It is a shame that some group of boneheads had to go and copy a style, tainting a movement full of culture, music, equality, and unity.

It is so odd to see the looks on people's faces when they see an album by Desmond Decker or Laurel Aitken singing about skinhead or skinhead reggae. They seem so very confused.

[Edited on Mar 12, 2005 by inkncarrots]

Most of the non-nazi skins I've known have been proud blue-collar anti-intellectuals with a slightly xenophobic mindset who like to break bottles in alleys for fun, drink themselves retarded as often as possible, and think puking is funny. They also seemed to have some weird fascination with Vespa scooters. Quite a few of them aspired to live in a trailer (this was seen as a desireable thing) rather than renting apartments. Most of them decried "the system" and wanted to fight "the man," but didn't seem to realize that by their own actions (refusing to get some book learnin', fighting "the man" by putting rocks through windows) helped keep them down.

They were also some of the most sexist bastards I've ever met.


They considered themselves "true" skins.

The neo-nazis that they used to get in fights with considered themselves to be "true" skins too.

Then there's the guys who say the only "true" skins were into reggae in the UK in the 60s/70s.

Wonder what your definition is?



[Edited on Mar 12, 2005 by Shalome]

Oh man see this is the shit I'm talking about, argh it pisses me off.
Alright here we go kids...

The original skins

The original skinheads first appeared in England in the late 1960’s, growing out of the "rude-boy" and "hard-mod" movements. White, working class culture united with that brought brought to the UK by Jamaican immigrants, and skinheads were the result. The original skins were black and white, and listened to ska music (a speeded up, more danceable form of reggae), as well as soul and blue beat.

These skins had a very tough, clean style which expressed their working class backgrounds, wearing Doc Marten workboots, Levi’s jeans, donkey jackets and suspenders (called "braces". At dances they would wear flashy suits, and mixed freely with West Indian youth, whose music and culture they admired. Racial violence by skinheads was near non-existent at this point. How could there be when the skinhead style grew out of black culture, and skins listned to black music?! (For this reason, we call neo-nazis "boneheads" because they are an abomination to where real skinheads come from).

It is true that skinheads were often linked to violence (which was frequently mindless). Skinheads frequently got into scraps with other subcultures, the police, and towards the end, other skinheads. This eventually lead to their downfall, and by 1972 the original skins were a rare breed.

What does it mean to be a skin?
Real skinheads hold certain ideals in common. We are all working and lower-middle class. We believe in unity, pride in our class and in ourselves. We enjoy music, dancing and a good night out. Many of us like beer (though some don’t). We seem to get in a lot of fights (though many of us do not start them). We are militant in standing up for what we believe in. And WE HATE RACISM, and fight it where ever it rears its ugly head.

People ask why we don’t just give up being skins, since we get attacked both by the right for being anti-racist, and the left and general public who think all skins are racists. To this, we answer that skinheads is our identity. We believe in it. It’s who we are, and we could no more give it up than change where we were born or the color of our skin.

We are proud of what being a skin really stands for (and not the racist shit preached by the right and the media), and we want to create a culture that expresses our ideals. In short, being a skin is our life and we don’t let anyone take that away from us.

The new breed
There is a growing section of the skinhead movement who are not only anti-racist, but also strongly left-wing. Many of us are anarchists, socialists, communists and anti-fascists. In addition to fighting racism, we fight against sexism and homophobia (the verbal, physical and psychological attacks on gays and lesbians). We fight against war, against attacks on the poor and working class (such as strikebreaking, cutbacks etc.), against imperialist intervention, police brutality and prisons. We fight for a better world based on our beliefs.

Real skinheads aren’t racist!

These days, it seems everyone thinks all skinheads are racist. Thanks to the mass-media (looking for a sensationalized story to sell papers and air-time), and the increased growth of the racist right’s organizing efforts in North America, our subculture has been stolen and demonized.

The original skins
The original skinheads first appeared in England in the late 1960’s, growing out of the "rude-boy" and "hard-mod" movements. White, working class culture united with that brought brought to the UK by Jamaican immigrants, and skinheads were the result. The original skins were black and white, and listened to ska music (a speeded up, more danceable form of reggae), as well as soul and blue beat.

These skins had a very togh, clean style which expressed their working class backgrounds, wearing Doc Marten workboots, Levi’s jeans, donkey jackets and suspenders (called "braces". At dances they would wear flashy suits, and mixed freely with West Indian youth, whose music and culture they admired. Racial violence by skinheads was near non-existent at this point. How could there be when the skinhead style grew out of black culture, and skins listned to black music?! (For this reason, we call neo-nazis "boneheads" because they are an abomination to where real skinheads come from).

It is true that skinheads were often linked to violence (which was frequently mindless). Skinheads frequently got into scraps with other subcultures, the police, and towards the end, other skinheads. This eventually lead to their downfall, and by 1972 the original skins were a rare breed.

The Oi! years
Out of the punk rock explosion of the late 1970’s grew Oi!, a street level movement of kids dedicated to bringing punk back to its angry roots. Oi! bands sung about real issues faced by youth in th UK, such as unemployment, prison, authority etc., and many bands had obvious left-wing slant (such as Sham 69, The Business and The Angelic Upstarts).

Unfortunately, other people sought to cash in on the new skinhead revival. Garry Bushell, a writer for Sounds music magazine frequently played up Oi!’s negative image of violence and aggressiveness, while at the same time making a hefty amount of money by promoting records of bonehead bands. Tis attracted a lot of thugs to what was once a positive, working class movement.

At the same time, due to outreach by the National Front (a fascist politcal party which at that time was at its height in Britain), racist and neo-nazi skinheads also began to appear. A mutation of the original racially-mixed skinhead movement, they sought easy scapegoats to the problems of unemployment and recession, blaming immigrants, blacks and other minorities instead of the conservative British government (then under Margret "the Vampire" Thatcher). Nazi skinhead bands such as Skrewdriver and Brutal Attack, and organizations like Blood & Honour (a racist skinhead network) made the message popular and accepted in the skinhead subculture.

Of course, the massmedia helped the nazis along by giving them exposure without debate. Interested only in selling papers, the media refused to allow anti-racist skins a voice, effectively silencing those who directly fought this nazi-resurgence on the streets and flooding the skin scene and flooding the skin scene with right-wing scum. Despite this setback, real anti-racist skins continued to fight on for their tradition by organizing Oi! Against Racism concerts, and physically fighting nazis out of the streets and shows.

What does it mean to be a skin?
Real skinheads hold certain ideals in common. We are all working and lower-middle class. We believe in unity, pride in our class and in ourselves. We enjoy music, dancing and a good night out. Many of us like beer (though some don’t). We seem to get in a lot of fights (though many of us do not start them). We are militant in standing up for what we believe in. And WE HATE RACISM, and fight it where ever it rears its ugly head.

People ask why we don’t just give up being skins, since we get attacked both by the right for being anti-racist, and the left and general public who think all skins are racists. To this, we answer that skinheads is our identity. We believe in it. It’s who we are, and we could no more give it up than change where we were born or the color of our skin.

We are proud of what being a skin really stands for (and not the racist shit preached by the right and the media), and we want to create a culture that expresses our ideals. In short, being a skin is our life and we don’t let anyone take that away from us.

The new breed
There is a growing section of the skinhead movement who are not only anti-racist, but also strongly left-wing. Many of us are anarchists, socialists, communists and anti-fascists. In addition to fighting racism, we fight against sexism and homophobia (the verbal, physical and psychological attacks on gays and lesbians). We fight against war, against attacks on the poor and working class (such as strikebreaking, cutbacks etc.), against imperialist intervention, police brutality and prisons. We fight for a better world based on our beliefs.

Fight for your class, not your country!
While many skins are nationalists, and proudly display the flag of their country, we are against this. Being nationalist goes against what being a skin means to us. Patriotism is a tool of the politicians and the rich of all nations to make the working class fight one anothe, instead of fighting their real enemies. Nationalism has poor kids killing each other in wars, and blaming foreigners and immigrants for the lack of jobs (instead of the corporations who exploit us all). Patriotism has been responsible for slavery and the massacre of millions of indigenous people. Instead of nationalism, we promote pride in our class and culture. We believe in uniting the international working class against the rich bastard rulers who screw us over every day.

.

[Edited on Mar 12, 2005 by Shalome]

I PIGEONHOLE MYSELF INTO A STEREOTYPE!!! OI!!

Well, I've learned something today.

There's no way I have the attention span to read all that. Sorry.

i dont get it why any one would want to be a skinhead... having pride in your job is retarded

Sorry to hear that Merry.

and why the fuck is that retarded black_tar_heroin?

I have pride in myself and what I do for a living.
And I'm more then happy knowning that I'm a hard working blue coller guy, and I'm damn proud to call myself a Trad Skinhead.

[Edited on Mar 12, 2005 by DuckieBoy]

because head-butting street-signs will get you laid.

What was the point of this thread?

Skins, Goths, Punks................are just regurgitated fashion statements and nothing particularly wrong with that but as the man Liotta says, when it comes to Heineken that's a different matter. The only movement I'm into involves my bowels.

You should join the SG Skinhead Group. You'll meet a good deal of people who know the history and who don't equate bonehead with skinhead.

Everything Shalome said!