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White power skinheads, also known as racist skinheads and neo-Nazi skinheads, are members of a
neo-Nazi Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazism, Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and Supremacism#Racial, racial supremacy (ofte ...
, white supremacist and
antisemitic Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...
offshoot of the skinhead subculture. Many of them are affiliated with white nationalist organizations and some of them are members of prison gangs. The movement emerged in the United Kingdom between the late 1960s and the late 1970s, before spreading across Europe, Russia and
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in the 1980–1990s.


Definition


Skinheads

Scholar Timothy S. Brown defines the skinheads as a "style community", that is to say a "community in which the primary site of identity is personal style", which allows innovative configurations to be made in new geographical and cultural contexts, or around opposing political ideologies – as in the
dichotomy A dichotomy is a partition of a whole (or a set) into two parts (subsets). In other words, this couple of parts must be * jointly exhaustive: everything must belong to one part or the other, and * mutually exclusive: nothing can belong simulta ...
between
racist Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
and anti-racist skinheads. From a group perspective, John Clarke, a precursor of skinhead studies in the 1970s, has noted that the "skinhead style represents an attempt to recreate the traditional working class community, as a substitution for the real decline of the latter which started in the 1960s."


White power skinheads

According to Jean-Yves Camus and
Nicolas Lebourg Nicolas Lebourg (born 1974) is a French historian who specializes on far-right movements in Europe. Biography Born in 1974, Lebourg studied sociology at Aix-Marseille University and history at the University of Perpignan, from which he graduated ...
, the white power skinhead movement, which emerged within the skinhead subculture from the late 1970s onward, can be defined by "racism; proletarian consciousness; an aversion to organization, dismissed in favor of gang behavior; and an ideological training that began with or is based on music." They have mostly emerged from working-class backgrounds, except in Russia, where they have mostly emerged from the educated, urban middle class.


History


Origins in England

The original skinhead subculture began in the United Kingdom in 1968–1969, probably in London and Southeast England, more specifically in the
East End of London The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have uni ...
according to Clarke. It had heavy British mod and Jamaican rude boy influences, including an appreciation for black music genres like
rocksteady Rocksteady is a music genre that originated in Jamaica around 1966. A successor of ska and a precursor to reggae, rocksteady was the dominant style of music in Jamaica for nearly two years, performed by many of the artists who helped establish ...
, ska, and early West Indian reggae. The particular lifestyle and aggressive look of skinheads was a self-declared reaffirmation of the traditional working class puritanism and gender roles – in fact "a ''stylized'' re-recreation of an ''image'' of the working class", which seemed threatened in their views with contamination by the permissive and hedonistic culture of the British middle-class in the 1960–1970s. For instance, the defining skinhead short haircut mostly emerged in reaction to the perceived shift in men's styles away from traditional
masculinity Masculinity (also called manhood or manliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles associated with men and boys. Masculinity can be theoretically understood as socially constructed, and there is also evidence that some behaviors con ...
, which was embodied by the "middle-class, peace-loving, long-haired student" of the hippie movement. The identity of the 1960s skinheads, however, was not based on white power,
neo-Nazism Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazism, Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and Supremacism#Racial, racial supremacy (ofte ...
or neo-fascism, even though some skinheads had engaged in " Paki-bashing", i.e. violence against
Pakistanis Pakistanis ( ur, , translit=Pākistānī Qaum, ) are the citizens and nationals of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. According to the 2017 Pakistani national census, the population of Pakistan stood at over 213 million people, making it the w ...
and other South Asian immigrants. Even so, black West Indians ("Caribs") were also involved in skinhead gang attacks against South Asian immigrants, and the violence has been interpreted by Alexander Tarasov as a social conflict caused by the new presence of South Asian traders and shopkeepers within a community of white and West Indian poor factory workers. Clarke similarly notes that areas where skinheads became the most prominent were "typically either new
council housing Public housing in the United Kingdom, also known as council estates, council housing, or social housing, provided the majority of rented accommodation until 2011 when the number of households in private rental housing surpassed the number in so ...
estates or old estates being either developed or experiencing an afflux of outsiders", either Commonwealth immigrants or middle-class whites in search of affordable housing. The leading politician Enoch Powell and his inflammatory 1968 "Rivers of Blood" speech gave a public voice to widespread anxieties concerning non-white immigration and the "threat" which was supposedly posed by South Asian immigrants. Although there is "little agreement
mong scholars Mong may refer to: People *A proposed original name for the Hmong people, based on the main group, the Mong community *Bob Mong (), American journalist and academic administrator *Henry Mong (), American surgeon and Presbyterian missionary *Mong M ...
on the extent to which Powell was responsible for racial attacks", the speech may have helped unleash " Paki-bashing" violence against South Asian immigrants, which was referred to as "skinhead terror" by '' The Observer'' in April 1970, with the "Paki-bashers" simply being referred to as "skinheads" in many contemporary reports. By the early 1970s, the reggae scene had ceased to be simply a "party music" and, under the influence of
Rastafari Rastafari, sometimes called Rastafarianism, is a religion that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. It is classified as both a new religious movement and a social movement by scholars of religion. There is no central authority in control of ...
sm, got closer to community-oriented themes like black liberation and African mysticism, which participated in alienating some white proletarians from the community. In 1973 white skinheads launched a violent melee in a night club, chanting "young, gifted and white" and cutting the speakers as the West Indian disc jockey was playing '' Young, Gifted and Black'' by
Bob and Marcia Bob and Marcia were a Jamaican vocal duo, that consisted of Bob Andy and Marcia Griffiths.Larkin, Colin (1998) ''The Virgin Encyclopedia of Reggae'', Virgin Books, , p. 33 They had a #5 UK hit single in 1970 with " Young, Gifted and Black". The ...
.


Emergence of the white power skinheads

The skinhead scene had mostly died out by 1973. Around 1977, a second wave started to emerge from the disintegration of the
punk subculture The punk subculture includes a diverse and widely known array of ideologies, fashion, and other forms of expression, visual art, dance, literature, and film. Largely characterised by anti-establishment views, the promotion of individual freedom ...
, which was radicalized as " street punk" when some of its members accentuated its aggressive character. Although the punk movement emphasized nihilistic and narcissistic values instead of the working class heritage, their opposition to the middle and upper class, the adoption of Nazi imagery by some punks to maximize shock value, and the development of an underground network of punk fanzines, inspired and facilitated the parallel emergence of a racist skinhead subculture. The latent
right-wing Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, authorit ...
and anti-immigrant leaning, present within the skinhead movement since the late 1960s, became progressively dominant in the United Kingdom, fuelled by the job crisis, the economic decline, and an increase in immigration during the late 1970s–early 1980s. By the early 1980s, the white power skinhead subculture had spread across most of Britain, largely "through face to face interaction among the fans at football matches." The cartoon character Black Rat, created in 1970 by French artist Jack Marchal, was adopted by young neo-Fascists in various European nations and became an essential marker of the fringe culture. Music played a key symbolic role in the political polarization of the skinhead subculture. Marchal recorded a French Hard Rock album named ''Science & Violence'' in 1979, and German students of the neo-Nazi party NPD formed the first German nationalist rock group in 1977. A new
music genre A music genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. It is to be distinguished from ''musical form'' and musical style, although in practice these terms are some ...
, Oi! – a contraction of "Hey, you!" pronounced with a Cockney accent – emerged as a skinhead version of punk rock in the late 1970s, contrasting with the sometimes multiracial bands of the left-wing and unpolitical skinhead resurgence, which rather drew influence from the original Jamaican Ska roots of the late 1960s. Coined as a nickname for the new genre by British journalist Gary Bushell in 1980, "Oi!" soon became synonymous with "skinhead". Unlike many of their followers, however, early Oi! band members were generally not neo-Nazi or even affiliated with right-wing organizations, and they increasingly distanced themselves from some of their fans, who contributed to recurrent riots at concerts. In July 1981, the "Southall riots" were sparked when hundreds of skinheads were welcomed at an Oi! gig which was performed in a predominantly-Asian suburb of London. Some skinheads began to attack the neighboring Asian stores, and 400 Asians later responded by burning the venue with paraffin bombs while the skinheads were fleeing with help from the police. The event led to a moral panic in Britain and the skinhead subculture was firmly associated with right-wing politics and " white power music" in the public's opinion by 1982. According to Brown, some lyrical themes of Oi!, such as social frustrations, political repression and working-class pride, were common to other genres such as country music or blues, but others like violence ("Aggro", for 'aggressiveness') and football hooliganism "could be easily interpreted in extreme right-wing terms." The phrase "
all cops are bastards ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards) is an acronym used as a political slogan associated with dissidents who are opposed to the police. It is typically written as a catchphrase in graffiti, tattoos or other imagery in public spaces. It is sometimes nume ...
" was popularized among some skinheads by the Oi! band The 4-Skins' 1982 song "A.C.A.B."


Political links and radicalization

From the late 1970s the National Front (NF), a British neo-fascist party which was losing ground in electoral politics, began to turn toward the skinhead movement to obtain
grassroots A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from the local level to effect change at t ...
supporters among the working class. The Rock against Communism (RAC) genre, relaunched in 1982 by Skrewdriver leader
Ian Stuart Donaldson Ian Stuart Donaldson (11 August 1957 – 24 September 1993), also known as Ian Stuart, was an English neo-Nazi musician. He was best known as the front-man of Skrewdriver, a Punk band which, from 1982 onwards, he rebranded as a Rock Against C ...
in association with the National Front, appeared in reaction to the Rock against Fascism movement. To draw new adherents, the National Front attempted to use the white power music scene to re-frame its message from overt hate of foreigners and minorities to self-love and collective defence of white identity. Donaldson and the National Front founded a record label named White Noise Club, which released Skrewdriver's album ''White Power'' in 1983, the eponymous song becoming "the most recognizable neo-fascist skinhead song". In 1987, a music festival was organized by National Front member Phil Andrewon on Nick Griffin's Suffolk property, and was attended by hundreds of racist skinheads from across Europe who gave the Nazi salute and sang along a chorus that demanded "white power for Britain". A split within White Noise Club led to the establishment of Blood & Honour in 1987. Donaldson had become involved with the West German label Rock-O-Rama and felt the need to create his own global neo-fascist skinhead movement without any political party affiliation. The music promotion network quickly turned into the "major reference point for young neo-fascists and neo-Nazis throughout Europe who came to Britain to attend the gigs of Skrewdriver and other bands." Even though skinhead violence helped damage the National Front's public image, the movement draw thousands of young people to neo-fascism and provided the party with a new medium to diffuse their message. In an effort to clean up both the British National Party's discourse and public image, Griffin publicly distanced the party from the skinhead subculture after he became its chairman in 1999. The party expelled skinhead members, although it has allowed white power band members to join and has accepted donations from neo-fascist skinhead concerts in the early 2000s. In 1990 the European Parliament's Committee of Inquiry into Racism and Xenophobia reported that the violent and racist skinhead subculture was "by far the most worrying development since the last Committee of Inquiry report
n 1985 N, or n, is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''. History ...
" The death of Donaldson in a car crash in September 1993, followed by that of Nicky Crane who succumbed to
AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...
in December of the same year, led to the takeover of Blood & Honour by Combat 18, "a more extreme, semi-terrorist neo-Nazi splinter group", and eventually to bloody internal feuds between Combat 18 supporters and Blood & Honour loyalists in the mid- and late 1990s. In 1985, a French worker at the
Brest Arsenal The Brest Arsenal (French - ''arsenal de Brest'') is a collection of naval and military buildings located on the banks of the river Penfeld, in Brest, France. It is located at . Timeline *1631-1635 Beginning of the foundations of the port infra ...
, Gaël Bodilis, created the label Rebelles Européens, which had an allegiance to neo-Nazism. It was associated with the FNJ, the youth wing of the Front National, the neo-fascist
Troisième Voie Third Way (french: Troisième voie) is a French Third Position organization founded in 1985 by a merger of the small neo-fascist group (English: National Revolutionary Movement), which gathered former members of François Duprat's Revolutionary ...
and later with the neo-Nazi organisation PNFE. The label rapidly grew as the second-largest white power music label in Europe, although the European white power rock scene only managed to enter the mainstream market in Sweden, where the band Ultima Thule reached the top of the charts in 1993.


Internationalization

Racist faction of the skinhead subculture began to appear in the first half of the 1980s in Scandinavia, the Netherlands, West Germany, Austria, the United States, Canada, and Australia; and by the mid-1980s in France, Belgium, Denmark, and Switzerland. During the 1990s, the movement rapidly grew in the West and began to spread more intensively towards Eastern Europe, Russia in particular. Before the Internet came to be widely available after the mid-1990s, white power skinhead music played a key role in the international diffusion of white supremacist ideologies within a highly fragmented racist movement. In many European countries, merchandising – and sometimes illegal racist or Holocaust-denying material – was sold via mail-order or during the touring of bands. Measuring the number of white power skinheads is made difficult by the lack of a formal and organized structure, the issue of overlapping memberships, and a tradition of silence set up to cultivate the mystique of their clandestine activities and to prevent the police from estimating the size of local groups. In 1995, around 70,000 of them were estimated to be present in 33 countries (half being "hard-core activists", the others friends and associates), including 5,000 in Germany, 4,000 in Czechia, 4,000 in Hungary, and 3,500 in the US. By 2002, 350 white power music bands were active the US and Western Europe, and as of 2012, about 138 racist skinhead organizations operated worldwide.


Europe

In most European countries, the racist skinhead subculture became polarized on the far-right between 1983 and 1986, and shortly after the fall of the
Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government ...
in 1989 in Eastern Europe, where it has been particularly strong since the transition to capitalism. The white power music scene rapidly embraced the growth of the Internet, which allowed them to bypass local European
hate speech Hate speech is defined by the ''Cambridge Dictionary'' as "public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation". Hate speech is "usually thoug ...
laws and further develop their international networks. In 2013, Hammerskin Nation (HSN) managed to bring together over 1,000 skinheads from all over Europe at a Nazi rock gig organized in Milan. In Germany, the hard rock band Böhse Onkelz ('Evil Uncles'), formed in 1980 in Frankfurt am Main, lay the ground for the radicalization of the skinhead movement by connecting the music scene with right-wing nationalism. Although they never openly embraced " white power" ideas, their 1981 song ''Türken Raus'' ('Turks Out') earned them a reputation as a racist band. In the 1980s, the German neo-Nazi skinheads were known for their violence, sometimes murderous. In 1985, a 76-year-old Jew who had survived the Holocaust was trampled to death during a fight between skinheads and anti-fascist demonstrators. In 1987, skinheads attacked Christians during a festival in Lindau because of the town council's refusal to allow the neo-Nazi Alliance of the German People to hold a meeting in the town hall. In August 1992, racist skinheads participated in the Rostock-Lichtenhagen riots, lynching immigrants with the help of ordinary citizens as passersby cheered. During the 1990s, the number of Neo-Nazi groups in reunified Germany skyrocket, with numerous unemployed young East Germans joining the white power skinhead movement. In France, the white power skinhead movement was structured around Jeunesses Nationalistes-Révolutionnaires (JNR), founded in 1987 by Serge Ayoub. It was linked to the label Rebelles Européens and to the neo-fascist organization
Troisième Voie Third Way (french: Troisième voie) is a French Third Position organization founded in 1985 by a merger of the small neo-fascist group (English: National Revolutionary Movement), which gathered former members of François Duprat's Revolutionary ...
, then to the French Nationalist Party. The JNR initially performed policing functions for the French Front National, but the latter eventually distanced itself from Ayoub and the JNR after mass skinhead attacks on immigrants in Rouen and Brest.


Russia

The Russian white power skinhead subculture takes its roots in the
Glasnost ''Glasnost'' (; russian: link=no, гласность, ) has several general and specific meanings – a policy of maximum openness in the activities of state institutions and freedom of information, the inadmissibility of hushing up problems, ...
during the 1980s, a period of relative liberalization led by the Soviet regime which allowed for fascist discourses to emerge among young Russian punks, primarily as a reaction against the ideology and history of the Soviet Union. Football hooliganism also played a role in the diffusion of neo-fascist rhetoric in the 1980s. The subculture, known in Russian as ''skinhedy'', appeared in 1992 in Moscow with a dozen of skinheads. Their size became noticeable by 1994, in the atmosphere of chaos that followed the
dissolution of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...
and
Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
's attempts at liberal reforms and rapid economic privatization. Their number skyrocketed throughout the 1990s, fuelled by economic disorder, the collapse of the education system, and the legitimization of violence against political opponents and minorities by the newly established liberal state, illustrated by Boris Yeltsin's attack on the Russian parliament during the
1993 Russian constitutional crisis The 1993 Russian constitutional crisis, also known as the 1993 October Coup, Black October, the Shooting of the White House or Ukaz 1400, was a political stand-off and a constitutional crisis between the Russian president Boris Yeltsin and t ...
, and the introduction of a state of emergency the same year to police and deport Caucasians in preparation for the
First Chechen War The First Chechen War, also known as the First Chechen Campaign,, rmed conflict in the Chechen Republic and on bordering territories of the Russian FederationФедеральный закон № 5-ФЗ от 12 января 1995 (в реда ...
. Sensationalized coverage of the skinhead movement by Russian state-owned media until the early 2000s has also participated in the large-scale diffusion of the movement. By the end of 1999 there were 3,500 to 3,800 skinheads in Moscow, up to 2,700 in
St Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
, and at least 2,000 in
Nizhnii Novgorod Nizhny Novgorod ( ; rus, links=no, Нижний Новгород, a=Ru-Nizhny Novgorod.ogg, p=ˈnʲiʐnʲɪj ˈnovɡərət ), colloquially shortened to Nizhny, from the 13th to the 17th century Novgorod of the Lower Land, formerly known as Gork ...
. The movement remained unnoticed in the general public until the early 2000s, when acts of violence began to multiply. Skinheads attacked a Vietnamese hostel in October 2000, an Armenian school in March 2001, led a pogrom at the Yasenevo Market on Hitler's birthday in April 2001, then a second pogrom in the Moscow underground transit system in November 2001, which resulted in 4 deaths. Despite some common grounds with Vladimir Putin's nationalist agenda, skinheads remain opposed to vestiges of authority in the country. The skinhead subculture presents itself, in the words of scholar Peter Worger, as an "ultra-nationalist alternative to Putin’s state-sanctioned patriotism." The neo-Nazi Russian National Unity group, in contrast, as known to have enrolled young members from skinhead gangs. The Federal Law on Counteracting Extremist Activity, adopted in 2002 after the skinhead pogroms, was rarely enforced by the police and skinheads are rather prosecuted for murders associated with hooliganism and everyday-life conflicts than for hate speech and racist violence. Some of the skinhead groups are autonomous, while others are linked to the US-based organizations Blood & Honour and Hammerskin Nation. Contrary to most other countries, the Russian skinhead subculture has attracted members from all income levels, and they have tended to come from the educated middle class in the urban centres. In 2004, there were about 50,000 self-identified skinheads in the country, with groups active in approximately 85 cities. Up to 2,000 rioters linked to the Russian skinhead movement have participated in an anti-Chechen pogrom in 2006. Under serious police pressure, the number of racist acts and Neo-Nazis started to significantly decline in Russia from 2009.


United States

In the 1980s and 1990s, many young American neo-Nazis and white supremacists, often associated with the
Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
, joined the growing US white power skinhead movement. By 1988, there were ~2,000 neo-Nazi skinheads in the United States. The first identifiable neo-Nazi skinhead group was the short-lived Chicago's Romantic Violence, established in 1984 by 25-year-old Clark Martell. The group collapsed when Martell was imprisoned for assault. Shortly thereafter in 1985, the American Front emerged in San Francisco. As other groups like the Hammerskins (1987) or Volksfront (1994) were growing in the country, racist skinheads gained acceptance among existing and organized US white power organizations like the
Church of the Creator Church of the Creator is a Christian-based faith organization headquartered in Ashland, Oregon. The church is most notable for achieving protection of its registered trademark name "Church of the Creator" through legal proceedings within US Feder ...
, White Aryan Resistance, National Alliance or KKK, which perceived the popularity of the subculture as an opportunity to expand their audience. At the time of his death in 2002, National Alliance leader William Luther Pierce, who regarded music as an opportunity to reach a young audience and counteract mainstream cultural productions, had become the world's largest white power music producer thanks to his label Resistance Records. In 2004, the white power label
Panzerfaust Records Panzerfaust Records was a Minnesota-based white power record label founded in September 1998. Named after a German anti-tank rocket, the record label distributed the music of white power bands and organized concerts across the United States. ...
launched a "Project Schoolyard USA" to distribute sample CDs to middle and high students across the United States. In the United States, most white power skinhead groups are organized at either the state, county, city or neighborhood level; the Hammerskin Nation is one of the few exceptions, due to its international presence. A 2007 report by the
Anti-Defamation League The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, is an international Jewish non-governmental organization based in the United States specializing in civil rights law. It was founded in late Septe ...
says groups such as white power skinheads, neo-Nazis, and the KKK have been growing more active in the United States, with a particular focus on opposition to illegal immigration. The Aryan Brotherhood has grown in some parts of the United States by swallowing whole skinhead gangs. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) noted in 2020 that the skinhead movement had "almost no young recruits" in the United States. The SPLC writes, "Image-conscious white nationalist groups and militant neo-Nazi groups are attracting the younger generation, while new racist skinhead groups are emerging only from the fragments of existing groups. No group is recruiting in significant numbers."
Sarah Lawrence College Sarah Lawrence College is a Private university, private liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York. The college models its approach to education after the Supervision system, Oxford/Cambridge system of one-on-one student-faculty tutorials. Sara ...
journalist Chelsea Liu identified their fashion style as one possible reason for the decline, seeing it as "increasingly obsolete" and noting the
alt-right The alt-right, an abbreviation of alternative right, is a far-right, white nationalist movement. A largely online phenomenon, the alt-right originated in the United States during the late 2000s before increasing in popularity during the mid-2 ...
's preference for casual clothing.


Anti-racist skinhead opposition

Since the emergence of white power skinheads in the late 1970s, anti-racist forces within the skinhead subculture, sometimes called " Red Skins" when associated with left-wing politics, have sought to resist the white power skinheads, who they often deride as "boneheads". Anti-racist skinheads generally emphasize the multicultural roots of the original skinhead subculture, and the authenticity of the skinhead style, which developed outside of the political realm. They oppose the views of white power skinheads, for whom the skinhead subculture emerged from a "pure white", working-class cultural and social context, emphasizing the " Paki-bashing" of the late 1960s to allege that the original skinheads as "white separatists". The Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP), founded in 1986 in New York City, stress the importance of the Jamaican influence in the original British skinhead subculture. The next largest antiracist skinhead organizations are SLO (Skinheads Liberation Organization) and RASH ( Red and Anarchist Skinheads).


Style and clothing

Early skinheads typically wore steel-toed combat boots or Doc Martens, thin red
suspenders Suspenders (American English, Canadian English), or braces (British English, Australian English) are fabric or leather straps worn over the shoulders to hold up skirts or trousers. The straps may be elasticated, either entirely or only at attach ...
, Crombie coats, sheepskin bomber jackets, blue jeans, mohair suits, in addition to a shaved head or very closely-cropped hair.The
Anti-Defamation League The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, is an international Jewish non-governmental organization based in the United States specializing in civil rights law. It was founded in late Septe ...
writes that although steel-toed workboots are typical of both racist and anti-racist skinheads, white power skinheads commonly fit their boots with white- or red-coloured laces to signify their affiliation to the subculture. These laces are usually done in a "ladder" style: laces are done horizontally instead of crossed. In a few gangs, these laces must be "earned" through acts of racist violence against a "perceived enemy of the white race". In the early 2000s, the Lonsdale clothing brand became popular among some
neo-Nazi Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazism, Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and Supremacism#Racial, racial supremacy (ofte ...
skinheads in Europe, partly due to the association of the four middle letters of Lonsdale – NSDA, the only visible part if worn under open jackets – with NSDAP, the acronym of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party. However, the brand has also been popular since the 1980s among non-Nazi skinheads. Lonsdale has publicly denounced the trend and sponsored various anti-racist events and campaigns. White power skinheads also tend to bear tattoos displaying their affiliation to the white power movement, although some leaders have encouraged members to abstain from receiving tattoos. Frequent depictions include Viking warriors or
Berserker In the Old Norse written corpus, berserker were those who were said to have fought in a trance-like fury, a characteristic which later gave rise to the modern English word '' berserk'' (meaning "furiously violent or out of control"). Berserkers ...
s, World War II German soldiers (especially Waffen-SS), and skinheads themselves – often all three together. Tattoos portraying a "crucified skinhead" are also extremely popular among white power skinheads.


Ideology

The central themes of white power skinheads revolve around "the ethnic war which will be waged in the future and the denunciation of a global Jewish conspiracy to promote miscegenation" (see White genocide conspiracy theory). The white power skinhead movement is generally associated with
neo-Nazism Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazism, Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and Supremacism#Racial, racial supremacy (ofte ...
, in part, this is due to its origins in the National Front and the
British Movement The British Movement (BM), later called the British National Socialist Movement (BNSM), is a British neo-Nazi organisation founded by Colin Jordan in 1968. It grew out of the National Socialist Movement (NSM), which was founded in 1962. Frequentl ...
, along with the presence of former
Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
(especially former members of the SS) who mentored members of nascent German racist skinhead groups in the 1980s–1990s. Historian
John F. Pollard John Francis Pollard (born 23 November 1944) is a British historian, an emeritus fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and Emeritus Professor of Modern European History at Anglia Ruskin University. His research ...
contends that "the racist skinhead ideology is fundamentally
neo-Nazi Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazism, Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and Supremacism#Racial, racial supremacy (ofte ...
in inspiration." Camus and Lebourg also argue that although not all racist skinheads can be classified as 'neo-Nazi', neo-Nazism remains hegemonic in the far-right skinhead movement. Scholars concede at the same time the difficulty of separating the public use of the provocative and subversive aesthetics surrounding Nazi symbols from actual belief in, and commitment to, Nazi ideology. The early-20th century Judeo-Bolshevik and Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theories have since evolved into the idea of a Zionist Occupied Government (ZOG), which claims that Jews secretly control the governments of Western states. Their attitude toward the Holocaust ranges from outright denial to minimization of the death toll, and even to glorifying the event in the lyrics of white power bands such as No Remorse or Warhammer. Nazi theories of Slavs as '' Untermenschen'' ('sub-humans') have been largely abandoned in favor of a more "inclusive" concept of white supremacy. American neo-Nazism and white supremacism largely helped "crystallize" the Nazi imagery and have had a powerful influence on the worldwide movement, as evidenced by the popularity of David Lane's
Fourteen Words Fourteen Words (also abbreviated 14 or 14/ 88) is a reference to two slogans originated by David Eden Lane, one of nine founding members of the defunct white separatist insurrectionary terrorist organization The Order. The slogans have served ...
and William Luther Pierce's '' The Turner Diaries'', which some Combat 18 leaders regard as their "Bible". According to Camus and Lebourg, the Nazifying imagery of white power skinheads was "at first largely provocative", and sometimes a way for the proletarian youth "of responding to the sacralization of the memory of World War II". Pollard also notes that "adolescent rebellion", involving a desire to be different by rejecting prevailing societal norms by using shocking imagery (like the wearing of Nazi regalia by motorcycle gangs in the 1960s and punk rockers in the 1970s), probably plays some part in the decision to wear neo-Nazi or racist symbols, or even to adopt the ideas they embody. References to Nazism have also been less significant in countries like Italy or Hungary, where fascist figures like
Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...
and Ferenc Szálasi still exert a strong cultural influence on the local far-right.


Lifestyle


Puritanism

White power skinheads see both the permissive society and the
sexual revolution The sexual revolution, also known as the sexual liberation, was a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the United States and the developed world from the 1 ...
as "perversions", and they generally promote an image of "clean-living, drug-free, heterosexual, working-class males". Homophobia and rejection of any form of drug-taking (except tobacco and alcohol) are common traits found across skinhead groups. According to historian
John F. Pollard John Francis Pollard (born 23 November 1944) is a British historian, an emeritus fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and Emeritus Professor of Modern European History at Anglia Ruskin University. His research ...
, this " puritanical" stance takes its roots in the anti-permissive way of life of the original skinheads who rejected the mod and
hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...
subcultures. A central element of this puritanism is the skinhead idea of "naturalness"; their aim is to "eliminate all abnormalities like, homosexuals, lesbians and other kinds of 'sick' and 'deviant' people". Skinheads'
opposition to abortion Anti-abortion movements, also self-styled as pro-life or abolitionist movements, are involved in the abortion debate advocating against the practice of abortion and its legality. Many anti-abortion movements began as countermovements in respons ...
partly results from a backlash against feminism and the sexual revolution, and from a paranoid anxiety about the demographic decline of the white race embodied in the widespread slogan "9 per cent", meaning that only 9 per cent of the world's population is white by their own calculations. Women are a minority among the white power skinhead movement. In Britain, France and Germany, they rarely attend events. Female presence at gigs is however more frequent in Italy, and entire families have been seen attending the Aryan and Nordic Fest in the United States. Despite a widespread misogynistic culture and a general absence of commitment to female equality, some skinhead women have rejected the traditional gender roles and can act as aggressively as their male counterparts.


Marginality

Skinheads present themselves as an excluded or martyr group repressed by the " police state" of liberal democracies. Blood & Honour and Combat18 have promoted conspiracy theories about the death of
Ian Stuart Donaldson Ian Stuart Donaldson (11 August 1957 – 24 September 1993), also known as Ian Stuart, was an English neo-Nazi musician. He was best known as the front-man of Skrewdriver, a Punk band which, from 1982 onwards, he rebranded as a Rock Against C ...
, suggesting that he was the victim of a political "assassination". The common skinhead motto "hated but proud" expresses the closed, excluded, but feared lifestyle of white power skinheads.


Odinism

Odinism Heathenry, also termed Heathenism, contemporary Germanic Paganism, or Germanic Neopaganism, is a modern Pagan religion. Scholars of religious studies classify it as a new religious movement. Developed in Europe during the early 20th centu ...
, the modern pagan religion reconstructed on the beliefs of
Norse Norse is a demonym for Norsemen, a medieval North Germanic ethnolinguistic group ancestral to modern Scandinavians, defined as speakers of Old Norse from about the 9th to the 13th centuries. Norse may also refer to: Culture and religion * Nor ...
and Ancient Germans, is particularly popular among skinheads due to its warrior ethos. ''Blood & Honour'' magazine regularly points out that Odinism is a "religion of warriors", while Christianity is a "religion of slaves". In the United States, racialist pagan groups like the
Odin Brotherhood The Odin Brotherhood is the name of a group that practices the modern Pagan religion of Heathenry.Michael Streeter. ''Behind Closed Doors: The Power and Influence of Secret Societies''. New Holland Publishers Uk Ltd. 2008. pgs 143-5, 258. The ...
or Wotansvolk have found some followers in the skinhead movement, and skinhead groups have also tended to revive
Slavic paganism Slavic mythology or Slavic religion is the Religion, religious beliefs, myths, and ritual practices of the Slavs before Christianisation of the Slavs, Christianisation, which occurred at various stages between the 8th and the 13th century. The So ...
. Pollard says, however, "the appropriation of Odinist/pagan imagery and iconography by racist skinheads seems to be largely symbolic, rather than a serious attempt to adopt an alternative religion to Christianity." Also, Odinism and neo-paganism have been less popular in countries like Italy or Spain, where skinhead groups have maintained a cultural attachment to Catholicism.


Notable organizations

* Aryan Guard * Blood & Honour * Boot Boys *
British Movement The British Movement (BM), later called the British National Socialist Movement (BNSM), is a British neo-Nazi organisation founded by Colin Jordan in 1968. It grew out of the National Socialist Movement (NSM), which was founded in 1962. Frequentl ...
* Combat 18 * Format18 *
Fourth Reich (New Zealand gang) The Fourth Reich was a racist skinhead prison gang formed in Paparua Prison (officially known as Christchurch Prison) in Christchurch in the early 1990s that terrorised communities in Nelson and on the West Coast of the South Island, New Zeal ...
* Hammerskins * National Front *
Public Enemy No. 1 (gang) Public Enemy No. 1 (abbreviated as PEN1; pronounced ), also known as PENI Death Squad (or PDS), is a prison and street gang formed in Long Beach, California and now based in Orange County, California. In 2004, the California Department of Justice ...
* Ryno-Skachevsky gang * Volksfront * White Aryan Resistance


In popular culture

Music groups * Kolovrat * Landser *
Macht und Ehre Macht is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: *David Macht (1882–1961), American pharmacologist * Gabriel Macht (born 1972), American actor *Michael Macht (born 1960), German chief executive *Stephen Macht Stephen Robert Mach ...
* No Remorse * Skrewdriver (originally a non-racist punk rock band) *
Skullhead Skullhead was a nationalist Oi! band from the Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle area. It was part of the Rock Against Communism (RAC) movement. History Formed in Consett in March 1984,R. Forbes & E. Stampton, “The White Nationalist Skinhead Movem ...
Films * '' Adam's Apples'' (2005) * '' American History X'' (1998) * ''
The Believer Believer(s) or The Believer(s) may refer to: Religion * Believer, a person who holds a particular belief ** Believer, a person who holds a particular religious belief *** Believers, Christians with a religious faith in the divine Christ *** Beli ...
'' (2001) * ''
Dead Bang ''Dead Bang'' is a 1989 American action thriller film directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Don Johnson, Penelope Ann Miller, William Forsythe, Bob Balaban, and Tim Reid. Johnson's character, based on real-life LASD Detective Jerry Beck, ...
'' (1989) * '' Erasing Hate'' (2011) * '' Green Room'' (2015) * '' Higher Learning'' (1995) * '' I.D.'' (1995) * '' Ill Manors'' (2012) * '' Imperium'' (2016) * '' The Infiltrator'' (1995) * ''
Made in Britain ''Made in Britain'' is a 1983 British television play written by David Leland and directed by Alan Clarke. It follows a 16-year-old racist skinhead and his constant confrontations with authority figures. It was broadcast on ITV on 10 July 19 ...
'' (1983) * '' Neo Ned'' (2005) * '' Pariah'' (1998) * ''
Orange Is the New Black ''Orange Is the New Black'' (sometimes abbreviated to ''OITNB'') is an American comedy-drama streaming television series created by Jenji Kohan for Netflix. The series is based on Piper Kerman's memoir '' Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Wo ...
'' (2016) * '' Romper Stomper'' (1992) * ''
Russia 88 ''Russia 88'' (russian: Россия 88, Rossiya 88) is a 2009 Russian mockumentary film directed by Pavel Bardin about Russian neo-Nazis. It was screened in the Panorama section at the Berlin International Film Festival. Director Pavel Bardin won ...
'' (2009) * '' Skinhead Attitude'' (2003)` * '' Skinning'' (2010) * '' SLC Punk!'' (1998) * ''
Sökarna ''Sökarna'' (literally "The Searchers") is a 1993 Swedish crime film directed by Daniel Fridell and Peter Cartriers. Liam Norberg stars as Jocke, a young criminal who after serving jail time becomes a successful bank robber and drug dealer. The s ...
'' (1993) * '' Steel Toes'' (2006) * '' This Is England'' (2006) * '' Tic Tac'' (1997) Video games * ''
Ethnic Cleansing Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer ...
'' (2002) * '' Manhunt'' (2003, known in-game as the Skinz) * ''
RoadKill Roadkill is an animal or animals that have been struck and killed by drivers of motor vehicles on highways. Wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVC) have increasingly been the topic of academic research to understand the causes, and how it can be mi ...
'' (2003, known in-game as "Talons" and "Dreg Lords")


See also

*
Ian Stuart Donaldson Ian Stuart Donaldson (11 August 1957 – 24 September 1993), also known as Ian Stuart, was an English neo-Nazi musician. He was best known as the front-man of Skrewdriver, a Punk band which, from 1982 onwards, he rebranded as a Rock Against C ...
* Far-right politics * Far-right subcultures * Index of racism-related articles * List of gangs in the United States * List of Ku Klux Klan organizations *
List of neo-Nazi organizations The following is a list of organizations, both active and defunct, whose ideological beliefs are categorized as neo-Nazism. This includes political parties, terrorist cells, street gangs, social clubs, criminal groups, websites, religious sects, ...
* Organizations designated by the SPLC as hate groups * Symbols designated by the ADL as hate symbols * List of white nationalist organizations * Racism by country *
Racism in Europe Racism has been a recurring part of the history of Europe. Austria There has been racism in various parts of Austria. Since the start of the European migrant crisis in 2015, there has been increase in the number of cases of racism. Belarus Bu ...
*
Racism in Germany Racism in German history is inextricably linked to the Herero and Namaqua genocide in colonial times. Racism reached its peak during the Nazi regime which eventually led to a program of systematic state-sponsored murder known as The Holocaust. Acco ...
* Racism in Russia * Racism in the United Kingdom * Racism in North America * Racism in the United States * Racism in Canada * Racism in Mexico * Racism in South America * National Socialist black metal * Nazi punk * Michael Kühnen * Nicky Crane * Right-wing terrorism *
Terrorism in the United States In the United States, a common definition of terrorism is the systematic or threatened use of violence in order to create a general climate of fear to intimidate a population or government and thereby effect political, religious, or ideolog ...
*
Domestic terrorism in the United States Domestic terrorism in the United States consists of incidents which are confirmed to be domestic terrorist acts. These attacks are considered domestic because they occurred within the United States and they were carried out by U.S. citizens and ...
* Tom Metzger * White nationalism * White power music * White pride * White separatism * White supremacy


Notes


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Further reading

* * * *


External links


Neo-fascists in Russia

Nazi skinheads and racist rock

Nicky Crane: The secret double life of a gay neo-Nazi
{{DEFAULTSORT:White Power Skinhead Neo-Nazi concepts Anti-LGBT sentiment Violence against gay men Violence against LGBT people Antisemitism in the United Kingdom Antisemitism in the United States Islamophobia in the United Kingdom Islamophobia in the United States Anti-black racism in the United Kingdom Anti-black racism in the United States Anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States