Que Onda?

Funny thing is that the original British Skinheads are anti-racist. The race split occured in the early 1980's when neo-Nazi's of the racist British Movement began infiltrating the English-Jamaican Ska scene many of London'd East-Enders would mix freely. Once the press got into the act, the Nazi element took over in the consciousness of the public.

Since then, groups like SHARP, (Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice) and Anti-Racist Action appeared and took it to the Nazi's actually kicking them out of some areas, (as in NYC in teh early 1990's).

As usual, something non-particularly European has been co-opted and Whitewashed into something else entirely. - The Angryindian

Wow, fascinating. I'm going to have to read up on that. Thanks.

Ah, heroin addiction and skinheadery--a winning combination. I'm shocked to find out that racist symbols are becoming mainstream or somehow "hip." I hope you're right and the kids wearing this stuff and just idiots who have no idea what any of it means, but I'm not so hopeful (though I'm largely ignorant of the whole thing, so who am I to say anything?).

Coincidentally I am writing a press release and some texts for a friend’s exhibition in Europe where she makes use of an altered Nazi slogan satirically. The cultural currency of nazi/white supremacy is still very much tied to it’s Reich past in Europe and is used to warn of slippage into authoritarianism again. In America other than the few surviving vets/inmates there is no direct evidence of what that shit was really all about, no psycho-geography of it, so I guess dumb people there feel freer to utilise it (absence makes the heart grow fonder!?!). Possibly because the US is simply more isolated from this past it does not take the lessons to heart as fully and so this idiocy happens. And if they say it is about pride, then use something not tainted with that past unless you mean to validate it, if you use the symbols you are making common cause with the Reich. There is plenty of ancient European iconography that has nothing to do with Hitler. So frankly all their excuses are full of shit (maybe they’ll claim they are Hindu’s next). If they truly are ignorant they need telling.
You’re doing some hard work of tolerance there, it totally would not be ok here because well we actually got bombed a lot by nazi’s (one whole city was wiped out) and while there are a few fascist skinheads it’s appropriation as a cool youth subculture is not really happening. Angry Indian's point of history is good too, there were many fights at gigs as ska loving skinheads rejected the fascist skins. Bands on the two tone label were at the heart of that, The Specials, Madness, The Beat, The Selector. Still happens sometimes, if a group unfurl a union jack it usually mean they are fascists and they will often be told where to go...
Worryingly Germany does have a growing fascist skinhead movement (and in the military) but to those in Europe that fought nazis this shit won’t fly. Maybe that’s in part why Rumsfeld complained about ‘old europe’ because it recognised what the Bush gang are all about. And white progs who are ok with this? Walking jokes. Maybe they should remember, last time this throwed down we kicked the fascists' arses.

I feel for you as I am in a similar housing situation (sans skinhead madness of course) and commend you (I guess) for trying to empathize with the cat but honestly, your daughter will have enough problems as it is (in reconciling her ethnicity/culture/heritage in light of -based on your comments- the phenotypical distance she has from one of the cultures in her make up) without having a skinhead who espouses hatred etc for you and yours. Even if the skinhead never physically touches you etc, he can succeed in "killing you" by being one of the influential (the cat is at present her uncle) persons/experiences in her life that lead her to kill off that part of her that is Mexican/Chicana if not openly despising it (which, lets be real, is usually a default impulse in people of color-especially girls-for somatic reason, limited in intensity only by the plausibility of repudiation-i.e. phenotype/plausible deniability). Best of luck an opinions are like assholes n the like, but if u wouldnt feel comfortable with her dating a skinhead or ascribing to their beliefs, y "let" (and u do have control here- because housing situation or not she is your daughter and you are her pops, just the same way the skinhead's parents choose to agree/egg on/condone whatever his hate and her-on, you can choose to not condone that crap when it comes to her. It's bad enough tv, print, school, most of her friends (assuming u live in that neighborhood/area for sometime) will be trying to soften and legitimize the hatred, u dont also need someone behind the gates, as it were, doing the same...trust me...kids r infinitely more perceptive/receptive than we give them credit for. Stay strong bruh

i appreciate the thinking, and the information, too. thanks, RickB.

jeffaclitus, i really do think some kids have no idea what ideology those symbols are tied into. taht's my issue. it's become mainstreamed. think what that means...hate crime has become cool...lynchings now trendy....genocide a hip style. the wearers, all, might not know it. but the symbols are growing out there, tshirts selling left and right...and how do i know? that's what i said the other night at the grocery store. "how do i know how seriously any one of these people take their symbology?"

i try to fit words like "Symbology" into moments like that. somehow, it helps.

i agree that a lot of kids becoming teenage nazis has a lot to do with hipness but i think the ska anti-racist thing had/has a lot to do with hippness as well. i mean what do SHARPs do except claim an anti-racist ideology? maybe i am ignorant of their brilliant organizing history but it looks like a lot of fluff to me. music can be very powerful and hate rock pollutes young minds.

i'm glad you're getting outta there, Nez.

thanks, luisa. i'm feelin you on that. the area just isn't right. and it's hard to be home when you can't feel comfortable, or when you know you make others uncomfortable.

I had no idea of the iron cross symbolism. They sell West Coast Choppers shirts at Wal-Mart, and now I'm ashamed my boy wore one. I'm grateful he's outgrown it.

Bizarre family dynamics I know about. Hope you can get your own place soon.

well until we know, we don't know. so no need to feel too ashamed, is my take on it. but it is great to have new knowledge, isn't it?

hi, well... your comment gets a little loose at the end and i lose track of the thread of your sentence, but i think you are telling me if i wouldnt let my daughter date a skinhead, i shouldn't be living here, even if it means being on the street. it's a great principled idea. but not so great in practicality. and he is not "the skinhead" even though i introduced him that way. he is "Prince Rudy!"

i cannot help feel empathy for those humans i do. i am actually not "trying" to empathize, i simply cannot be indifferent, and not see someone's heart. that is how i am made. i am not like you, maybe. as i said, there is a ratio. when i or my family are in danger, i do not begin to pen an ode to the harms that society has visited upon my attacker. i take care of myself and my family. but this is a blog. like a diary or journal, but with interstate 80 blowing wind through every page.

if I were truly worried about Prince Rudy "being influential" i would act. but he is not, nor will he be influential. he only breezes into town once in a blue moon, and we are on the way out anyway. i am talking here mostly about the mood of the town, symbols i see, and the tension i feel when Prince Rudy's appearance is heralded.

I feel for him because i don't think he's really a Skinhead. He's an angry, fucked up kid who has little hope and not much to live for and a monkey he can't kill. I won't let my vision get me or my family hurt, and I agree that staying in the environment would condone it. but conversely, i dont need to rouse my bile and fury to know someone is dangerous. I dont' need to make them evil to know they are harmful. i prefer to not kill off my own heart whenever possible. i know what that's like already.

you imply that it's a bad enivironment and that it would teach negative conflicting things about her (as if you have never read anything of substance i have written here because that's half of what i talk about!) and i agree...thats what the post is about. so you have basically just echoed what i write here in my blog 80% of the time—one of the core themes, in fact—but in a condensed, misspelled, condescending fashion. so are we in sync, then? if so, you'd think youd understand...or empathize. but instead you lecture.

i agree if my little one were more cognizant the hypocrisy of our staying would be an issue. and it would soon anyway. and i agree, children are very smart. (that is something i talk about here and there, too.) its a moot point, clearly. what with the recent events. which you are aware of. right?

Regardless, when i do teach her of these things, i would not teach her to hate in return, anyway. i will teach her understanding. (and martial arts!)

if you did catch up on what i write about generally, my stances would become a little clearer.

"I feel for him because i don't think he's really a Skinhead. He's an angry, fucked up kid who has little hope and not much to live for and a monkey he can't kill."

very well said.

and shit... this is what always happens when people let their damage rule them. well i don't mean "let," it's not like all of this dude's fuckedupedness is his own choice, there's drugs and abuse and family situation and all that.

i just mean something about how that shit can swallow you up. and you start by becoming sad or bitter and then you get angry and then you fall into a black hole called hate and there you are.

no, i agree. we will never be rid of all our stain, never be free from certain pain, never be perfect angels if we've had our wings clipped or burnt, but there is giving in and there is doing the best you can. that makes sense to me: to let your damage rule you.

"It's a group based on hating and killing other people due to their ethnicity or race."

And not just killing, but proudly wearing blood on the front of their boot. The fun part, as you point out, is that you can't tell - on sight - which one is a wanna-be ("angry, fucked up kid who has little hope and not much to live for and a monkey he can't kill") and which one will kick. your. ass. A determination made casually can cost you your life.

I showed a movie in my class a couple of times (see "Invisible Revolution") that really takes the considerations to a whole new level. It might be in a library near you, especially if there's a university close enough to visit.

I have lived with a young man strung out on her-on: my son. For eight years, off and on. When he died (two weeks before his twenty-third birthday), as horrible as it probably sounds to some people, I felt relief on some levels. He was, unquestionably, my Prince. And he was highly talented and rabidly anti-racist. But he was a criminal to the core, as well.

I remember one time he showed up unexpectedly at my house in the middle of a hurricane (I swear). He had his girlfriend and three cats in tow and had just finished driving a thousand miles in an SUV FULL of cat-shitty laundry. Their waist-length hair was alive with glitter and years after his death, his younger sister remembered the moment once with the comment that they arrived that day looking for all the world like they had just stepped out of the movie "Kalifornia".

You captured here, with your usual grace, the humor, the pathos, and the contradictions of the situation (even within yourself). Kudos, once more, Nezua. You can't imagine how much I look forward to your posts. Now that I'm hooked. Was that a poor choice of words?

ah, changeseeker. this moved me. i feel you on this. how poignant a picture you have painted.

and thank you. jeje...not such a poor choice of words, maybe. no fear, i don't step on my stuff. you're getting it nice and clean and generally in a steady stream.

Great post Nez.

Forgive me for this slight derail.

SHARPS used do a lot of organizing and action. SHARP wasn't just a descriptive term. It was an actual organization. SHARP is defunct now, though. There was a rift between SHARP members that were homophobic and those that were not. The non-homophobic SHARP members went on to form RASH (Red and Anarchist Skinheads). Nowadays, SHARP is used a descriptor to signal to others that you aren't a white power skinhead. The Anti-Racist Action is a political organization that also organizes activists to work against sexism and homophobia. These aren't large groups that are going to get a lot of mainstream attention though, because they come out of and are primarily focused on youth subcultures like punk.

As far as the hipness factor, yeah, there's some of that. In many ways the original skinheads were the equivalent of white working class kids in the U.S. that are into Hip Hop today. In fact, the original skinheads took a lot of their style from the Rude Boys from Jamaica. So, when you see a skinhead, in a way you're again seeing the equivalent of the white kid Hip Hopped out. However, many Jamaicans in England took to the original skinhead movement as well (the Jamican Rude Boys and the English skinheads shared a taste for Ska. Dancehall, Reggae, Bluebeat) and they did in fact freely mix with the English Skins. So, you have the Jamaican Reggae band Symaryp, who titled their album "Skinhead Moon-Stomp and the skinhead reggae movement. Yes, it is true. The original skinhead movement included black skinheads. It was a bi-racial scene to the extent that a scene can be bi-racial in a predominately white country.

I wouldn't say that the original skinhead movement was actively anti-racist, though. If anything they were mostly apolitical. And you can find several accounts of Black Skins discussing the racism that they encountered in the scene. And to make it more complicated, there were factions of skins, both Black and White, that took part in what was called Paki-Bashing, which as the term implies, involved roaming around and beating up Pakistanis.

There is, I think, no way to get around the notion of all skinheads as white power skins these days, though. I used to insist that people qualify the type of skinhead they are talking about, because I have had friends that are/were trad skins and anti-racist skins, and they were good people; but I can't expect everyone to be an amateur counter-culture historian like myself or to have known skins that weren't white power skins. Skinhead=racist is just too ingrained in our consciousness now.

i appreciate that education, kevin.

it's also true, i think, as magniloquent put it in her post linking this one: it's just too dangerous to guess at (what may be valid) distinctions. safer to be prepared for the worst, just in case you are not encountering an exception to the rule.

it's also true, i think, as magniloquent put it in her post linking this one: it's just too dangerous to guess at (what may be valid) distinctions. safer to be prepared for the worst, just in case you are not encountering an exception to the rule.

Yes, very true. I was going to mention that at the end and somehow managed to leave it out. On the one hand, I've had anti-racist skinhead friends; on the other hand, I've been stabbed by a skinhead while trying to keep another one from beating down one of my boys. There are good ones, and there are bad ones, and unfortunately most of them fall on the white supremacy side of the fence.

So, while I did want to try and explain a part of skinhead culture that folks aren't aware of, I would still advise to err on the side of caution.

I'll add, though, that for me, skinhead culture is no different than the larger white culture. I've run my ass off scared for my life from more "mainstream" white folks than I have skinheads. At the risk of sounding a tad too much like a conspiracy theorist, I also suspect that, at least in part (to be honest, the skinhead, rough look is conducive to white supremacists, and those steel toe boots can send a powerful message), the whole co-opting of skinhead culture was done so that white dudes with nice haircuts and suits, ala David Duke, can deflect the attention/suspicion away from themselves. Not only do they get young, impressionable kids to do their dirty work ("He's an angry, fucked up kid who has little hope and not much to live for and a monkey he can't kill." --this is their main target), they have the added bonus of getting people to think: "oh, I would never support those young racist ruffians, but Mr. Duke, he seems like a respectable man. He's just proud of his race, is all."

But yeah, thanks for pointing that out. And thank you again for what is, once again, a beautiful post.

i dont really think it's an accident, nor necessarily done on purpose (but certainly informed by purpose) that many violent outfits—militaries, skinheads, fascist outfits—share many features of garb and feel of costume. tight cropped/shaven hair, heavy boots, gasmask type chic, batons, black, masks, tight straps. again, i'm making a general stroke here, and i don't want to get into arguing with anybody about how dangerous a band is that happens to wear this look, for example, but i'm saying that i dont find it surprising that people who want to resonate with similar energies of control and violence look to similar aesthetic.

thank you for your words, bro.

Survivalists are another group that comes to mind. Many of them want to survive at all costs and that to them means removing anyone they see a threat (ie. minorities) who they don't see as deserving of life.

Condolences, amigo. We have some of that element here, but it only manifests itself in the occasional act of vandalism or graffiti. However many of them there are they keep to themselves. Must have something to do with it being a town of about 350K people and about 60% of Mexican descent. This isn't the easiest place to make a living, but everyone gets along pretty good. It's one of the reasons I've stayed here for 25 years or so.

Hola Cumpa,

Have you seen the blogs yet about Governor Schwarzeneggers
being on the cover of Time Magazin sporting a belt buckle that looks a lot
like a Nazi SS-Totenkopf logo. If not, see this link:

http://raumfahrer.wordpress.com/2007/07/20/well-dressed-nazi/

Tristan