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if you're an American, the "Redskins" name for sports teams comes from the outdated racial epithet for Native Americans, who's image was co-opted into sports and school mascots based on their stereotype as being savage, barbarous, vicious, and aggressive.
which is used all over the place, ranging from the subtle:
to the obvious racism:
Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete?
Proving nature's law is wrong it learned to walk with out having feet.
Funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air.
Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else ever cared.
yes, and it's a shame that people still think that way! but his/her claim goes beyond this. in any event, this is really a semantical debate and does really amount to much, but none-the-less this thread just wreaks of the no true scotsman fallacy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete?
Proving nature's law is wrong it learned to walk with out having feet.
Funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air.
Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else ever cared.
By the early-mid 70s "paki-bashing" had already become a sport to many skins, both white and afro caribean.
Madness were actually racist in the days before signing up to 2-tone records but they were talked round by Terry Hall & co. I'll have a dig round my cd collection and try n find the interview where this is brought up, as it's not something that gets mentioned much.
My impression of the defining characteristic of skinhead culture was some vague sense of energy and independence ...... and I think thats how fascism got their claws into them.
"Dixi et salvavi animam meam" - quoted by Marx
"Things rarely work out well if one aims at 'moderation'..." - Engels
"By and by we heare newes of shipwrack in the same place, then we are too blame if we accept it not for a Rock." Sir Philip Sydney
"The most to be hoped for by groups who claim to belong to the Marxist succession (...) is for them to serve as a hyphen between past and future....nothing can be held sacred – everything is called into question. Only after having been put through such a crucible could socialism conceivably re-emerge as a viable doctrine and plan of action." - Van Heijenoort
Uh. I am simply stating a personal opinion. It is not so that I want to ban skinhead culture. I do not want to ban hiphop either, even though I dislike that music.
But I won't glorify it.
the defining charectoristic is more working class pride, but that can easily become national pride with the right stimuli, and that in turn fascism/nazism. Never forget that there is a long and persistant history in the working class for racism, and any movement that goes with working class pride runs the risk.
The skinhead movement is not inherantly racist, but by it's very nature is vunerable to racism.
I was at a Selector gig last year, one skin ziek hieled everyone on the way in, at the end of the night needless to say he got leathered. Never underestimate how stupid people can be
i don't know if there is a such thing as a "defining characteristic" to skinhead culture. i mean, by definition, a culture or subculture is a collection of such defining characteristics.
but as i said on the last page, i completely agree with you on the role of racism, antisemitism, and religious bigotry and the working class: these bankrupt ideologies provide a much needed scapegoat (albeit a wildly inaccurate and extraordinarily harmful one) to certain segments of the disposed masses when they are in disparate need of an answer to their problems -- problems that aren't caused by race or whatever else people get in their heads, but that are ultimately caused by capitalism.
i understood that, and there are certainly quite a few subcultures that don't personally fit my tastes. i just don't see the point in justifying that distaste with moralistic elitism.
if you're going to suggest that culture X is adjective Y, and that this is something to be frowned upon, you need to back that up with more than just blank assertions.
Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete?
Proving nature's law is wrong it learned to walk with out having feet.
Funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air.
Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else ever cared.
I used to believe that all skinheads were nazis, but that was when I was much younger. When the media is talking about violence by young nazis in America, they almost always refer to them as skinheads, so the image of "violent nazis = skinheads" gets built up in your mind.
A lot of violent Nazis are skinheads, no doubt on that, but at the same time a lot of violent anti-nazi's are skins, but that side rarely gets covered. Most skins I've come across are fence sitters on the racism issue, but I'm sadto say I've come across more racist skins than racist skins in 20 years on the punk/ska scene and political activity.
I suggest you look up RASH (Red and Anarchist Skinheads).
And a certain type of machismo? Or are there more relaxed (not sure what word is appropriate here) skinhead subcultures? Coz the whole skin thing (or at least my impression of it) seems to involve a lot of macho style bonding - a kind of tough, aggressive, manlyness thing.
I've never heard of them. They're probably a regional offshoot of one of the bigger far-right parties or something.Originally posted by Red-star-Hague@September 10, 2007 08:51 pm
I was on a bus the other day with my mate, who is a skinhead.....not a skinhead by culture...but just has a skinhead in general. He has a few tatts etc.. aswell so a mean looking skin
We pulled up to some traffic lights and this other bloke knocked on the window and passed a leaflet through the open window flap of the bus.
It was a National Socialist Leaflet. Some boneheads who call themselves "the Britain first party" Anybody heard of them??
It was a shame though, especially after i had been reading this thread and then seen it first hand. So i will follow on from what i said earlier and say that skins of watever look just are associated with the right <_<
Though not all skins share it, a defining characteristic of a skinhead is somewhat aggresive behavior. This generally stems from the built up frustration and rage at the conditions they are forced to live in. As proletarians, they are disrespected so much that they develop a sort of aggresiveness toward anyone that shows any kind of disrespect to them. It's not common for skinheads to jump random people or start fights with people that they have had no contact with, it just usually takes very little for someone/something to trigger them.
You seem neat, but...
They divide us by our color, they divide us by our tongue,
They divide us men and women, they divide us old and young,
But they'll tremble at our voices when they hear these verses sung,
For the Union makes us strong!
Up until a few years ago, I was one of those people who though skinheads were rascist because most you see on television etc tend to be. Obviously I know better now.
Ok, but most proles don't share this mentality?
And why does this frustration have to be channeled in a way that (seems at least) so preoccupied with machismo?
What are the positives of building a (sub)culture around that?
What is wrong with being macho? Would you rather we were all effeminate or something? (Not that i have a problem with that).
"No references to the need to fight terror can be an argument for restricting human rights." Vladimir Putin
"The strengthening of our statehood is, at times, deliberately interpreted as authoritarianism." Vladimir Putin
"We shall fight against them, throw them in prisons and destroy them." Vladimir Putin
Where do i start?
You don't think hyper masculinity is a little... problematic?
'Being macho' reinforces the prototypical patriarchal man - that to be a 'man' is to be strong and aggressive; to dominate others - often women (the gap between machismo and chauvinism is slight).
What do you think is 'right' about being macho?
Why would you ask me a question like that if you didn't think that effeminacy was negative?
It's not as if putting 'not that i have a problem with that' in brackets is going to make me forget that you just implied that effeminacy was undesirable; so what do you think is undesirable about effeminacy?
More importantly, why do you limit maleness to a choice between machismo and effeminacy?
Is this at all related to your admiration (?) of Sparta? (You never replied in that other thread... what exactly is the story behind your username? What links if any do you see between yourself and the Spartans?)
Being aggresive does not inherently make one machismo. I can be very aggresive if rubbed the wrong way, yet I have very effeminate aspects to me and am by no means machismo.
Yes, I know, but the ones that do have united (somewhat) together to form a subculture.
You seem neat, but...
They divide us by our color, they divide us by our tongue,
They divide us men and women, they divide us old and young,
But they'll tremble at our voices when they hear these verses sung,
For the Union makes us strong!
Sure, except skinhead culture seems to be built exclusively around this hyper masculinity - to the virulent exclusion of other less stereotypically macho conceptions of maleness.
I understand, but i guess i'm trying to understand the positives of building a (sub)culture around aggro masculinity?
By no means was it solely built around aggresive behavior. A skinhead is defined by their clothing, music tastes, the fact that they're working class, and their lifestyle. As a product of their surroundings, many skinheads developed aggresive demeanors.
You seem to be under the impression that aggresiveness is what defines a skinhead. The great thing about the skinhead culture is that it united/unites working class people of both sexes and all ethnicities into a relatively like-minded group. They are not united based on their "aggro masculinity" (aggresiveness does not always entail masculinity), but on the other factors I mentioned earlier.
You seem neat, but...
They divide us by our color, they divide us by our tongue,
They divide us men and women, they divide us old and young,
But they'll tremble at our voices when they hear these verses sung,
For the Union makes us strong!
