American Skin Heads an Example of a Subculture

Skinheads Movement in America

"Skinheads' is a group of whites who are responsible for creating racial discrimination and prejudice in the United States. They were a very prominent, deviant and often violent sub-culture existing in the country in 1980s. A sub-culture is different from a minority group because the latter is primarily based on ethnic background while the former is grounded in value system. A person who joins a sub-culture is expected to have same values and beliefs as other members of the group. Farley (1990) defines subculture "as a set of cultural characteristics shared among a group within a society that are distinct in some ways from the larger culture within which the group exists, but also have features in common with the larger culture. Usually, a group that forms a subculture has some sense of identity, some recognition that people in the group share something among themselves that others in the larger society do not. A subculture can develop any time a group of people share some situation or experience that is different from that of others in their society."

Skinheads originated in Britain in early 1970s and their appearance makes them stand out. Most of those who have joined this group wear tattoos and are shaven-headed. They apparently grew up in America somewhere in mid-80s or at least that's when their presence came to the limelight. Skinheads believed in white supremacy and led to nationwide terrorism. While the rest of America was trying to create a race-less society where all would be treated equally, skinheads proved that prejudice was still very much a part of the American social fabric.

"Their style was meant to symbolize tough, patriotic, anti-immigrant, working class attitudes, in contrast to the supposedly, pacifist, liberal, middle class values of the long-hairs. A key aspect of the Skinhead phenomenon was their music, a type of hard-driving rock called "White Power" or "Oi!" music, whose lyrics pounded home a message of bigotry and violence." (Leo, 1988)

To understand the origin of skinheads in the United States, it is important to find out how and why the movement began in Britain. It was because of the deteriorating economic conditions of the country that white factory workers formed a group to fight for their rights, the group took up some other causes too.

"The skinhead movement began in Britain more than 20 years ago. It had become a fashion there among some groups of young factory workers to shave their heads, because they had to keep their hair cut short anyway in order to avoid getting it caught in the machinery. As racial, social, and economic conditions in Britain deteriorated, these young, White factory workers were among the hardest hit." (Dr. William L. Pierce, 1995)

American skinheads were obviously followers of the same group in Britain and therefore they would dress and behave exactly the way their counterparts did in other countries. On top of that the most despicable aspect of this body was their affinity for Nazism. They were not only propagating the cause of whites but also wee openly anti-Semitic; they firmly believed in religious supremacy too. This group was basically composed of working class Americans; all of them showed a prejudice against immigrants in the country. And their hatred for the immigrant class also originates from Britain where the movement first took place.

Skinheads or Skins as they are commonly known as are mostly young people between the age of 13 to 15 and males are in majority. They claim to be working for the rights of the white "working class" but most people are of the view that this group is nothing more than a terrorist racist body with no cause or objective. While in Britain most of those who joined this group belong to a specific class of the society, but that is not the case with skins in the United States as "the class origins of American Skins run the gamut from poor to wealthy." Most of them were heavy beer drinkers and often used drugs, which makes them a menacing terrorist group trying to create trouble in the name of white cause.

But wouldn't it be unfair to label them as terrorists because while they turned into a dangerous group of racists, there was a very genuine reason for their growth. They did not emerge solely for the purpose of harassing the non-whites but the real reason for their emergence was their anger and rage against the government that would blame them in any conflict between a white and a non-white.

Giving reasons for the emergence of this group in April 1995 during a speech, Dr. William L. Pierce said,

" ... In America, there was a code of Political Correctness observed by the controlled media and the government. Under this code, non-Whites could do no wrong. Whenever there was a conflict between Whites and non-Whites, the Whites were blamed. Young Whites felt abandoned by their government. With a high unemployment rate, very limited prospects for improvement, and the breakup and destruction of their ancestral communities, they saw no future for themselves. Banding together and adopting a characteristic manner of dress and grooming was their way of asserting themselves and finding an identity. They were young, White, working class, and alienated. They were the original skinheads."

The skinheads' movement came to America because whites were increasingly feeling insecure and helpless because of government's attitude and policies that assumed that Whites were always at fault while non-whites were the victims. This would appear to be a strange case to someone who is not a non-white, but the movement made sense to those who knew what it felt to be abandoned by the government and to be also accused of being wrong. But this doesn't justify the terror that skins wanted to create in their respective area by promoting a racist attitude and by openly showing appreciation for the policies of Nazis.

An interesting development took place when skinhead movement gained momentum in America, while previously they thought of all whites as part of them and would view them as victims of government's policies, they later stated differentiation between the whites of the movement and other whites who were against the skins. They felt that the whites who did not want the success of the movement were enemies and must therefore be treated as one. This gave rise to a crisis when a white Denver police man was killed who was trying to stop the skins as these whites felt that police was an art of the government, a government they hated from the very bottom of their hearts and this hatred had been the very reason this movement took birth. Then there was a case of shooting of a white woman who was trying to help a non-white, these incidents and many other similar tragic activities of the skins made it clear that skins were no longer a group of white innocent workers who wanted their rights but was emerging as a troublemaking body that would stop at nothing.