ok here’s the thing about those left leaning people who never had to check their privilege: They can even question whether or not a person in full skin head attire is really a Nazi, or whether he’s even making a political standpoint with his look. Cuz doing that would be prejudicial and you shouldn’t have prejudice if you fight the very thing, they say.
And excuse me, this is such total bullshit. You don’t “happen” to like the skinhead look by accident. If you wear it, you are either perfectly aware what it communicates, or, in a best case scenario, you don’t care. And if you don’t care, you are okay that a lot of people are instinctively afraid of you, for example because they belong to one of the groups who were historically persecuted and murdered by Nazis. In fact, that’s part of the appeal of the look– intimidate other people, look strong, perform an aggressive masculinity.
It’s simple and pure privilege to have the distance to look at a skinhead and still give him the benefit of the doubt. For the rest of us, we are scared by his obvious threat to come after us as soon as the political climate shifts just a little bit.
A classmate of mine was a skinhead-not-nazi. He claimed he was Jewish and that he destroys nazis but he still dressed like them. I was never comfortable around his performative ‘reclaiming’ of the look.
well yeah reclamation doesn’t work if it scares the victims? idk. if he was Jewish, coping with Nazism is tricky …
I hate to interject but i hear the word “skinhead” and my ears perk up always without fail. I may have a bias here because I’m enamored to death with youth subcultures and skinheads are no exception. I’ll start this off by saying I’m a Jew and whenever i see skinheads being used synonymously with the word “Nazi” i get this awful uncontrollable urge to stick my nose in places i wasn’t invited.
But anyway, to make a long story short, back in the late 60s skinheads were the byproduct of british mods and jamaican rudeboys uniting under their shared love of jamaican reggae and british working class pride. At its very origin, the skinhead subculture could not have been further from anything remotely racially political. In fact, it wasn’t until the invention of 2-tone much much later that Britain saw such a massive unification of races (though 2-tone was much more massively interracial).
It wasn’t until the second wave of skinheads in the late 70s early 80s that all of a sudden boneheads (bonehead is the proper term for Nazis who are wannabe pretend skinheads) hijacked a subculture that was so hilariously contradictory to anything they stood for. They hijacked it for the shaved head fashion (which wasn’t even a thing until 2nd wave skinhead punks. First wave skinheads had short cropped heads), the steel capped boots, the 501 levi jeans, etc. They thought this appearance looked tough (and they were right. Original skinheads were always getting into trouble, having fights with other skinhead groups for completely apolitical reasons). Boneheads also couldnt help but like the music too, but they had to impress their BM and NF elders by ensuring they were only in the music scene to convert others to their cause.
An important thing to note here is that it is virtually impossible to determine what came first; the radically right-leaning second wave “skins” or the radically left-leaning second wave skins (some of which were influenced by first wave punk, many of which were obviously anti-racist to begin with as a result of their upbringing). To say skinheads are inherently Nazis is to completely disregard their jamaican roots, ignore the efforts of organizations like S.H.A.R.P. (skinheads against racial prejudice) and other anti-racist skinhead gangs that were always there, and wrongly place blame to an entire subculture where only a small precentage was hijacked by scum and the rest are either left-leaning or apolitical all together.
So why do many people today only hear about neo-nazis when there’s talk about skinheads? Hmm, i wonder.. (*side-eyes the drama-hungry, money-grabbing, fear-inciting fuckers behind every news sharing media platform everywhere*)
Tldr; He wasn’t “accidentally into the skinhead look” and ignoring the effect it had on people. He was full and well aware of its history and rightfully so embracing its immense historical and ongoing importance in the racially-unifying, music- and working-class loving part of the world today.
Yours truly,
A nazi hating, skinhead loving Jew
(P.S. you may not see it my way but no hard feelings. I just love to ramble on and on bout the things i love)
I didn’t know all this and it’s very interesting, but I wonder how this relates to like, the swastika. It was originally a Hindu religious symbol (design slightly different), and even those whose religion uses the symbol is very careful about displaying it out of understanding and respect for those that symbol hurts.
Personally, white shaved head doesnt automatically equal looking like a nazi. But yeah, any random white (looking/passing) person I see walking around with the getup, I’m going to feel scared/angry at seeing. It’s really sad when terrible people ruin symbols/looks, but it’s important, imo, to never participate thoughtlessly. One may weigh the consequences and decide the history is more important, but I’ll tend to always lean toward wanting people to feel safe as my personal priority and consider those who don’t as having a position of privilege (in this way specifically) to make the the other choice.
Thoughtfulfangirling 