The majority of skinheads are not racists. The original skinhead subculture started in the United Kingdom in the late 1960s and had heavy British mod and Jamaican rude boy influences, including love for ska and soul music. Skinheads were not associated with an organized racist political movement until the late 1970s, when a skinhead revival in the UK included a sizable neo-nazi faction. Because of this, the mainstream media began to label the whole skinhead identity as neo-fascist, which is not true.
Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP) are anti-racist skinheads who oppose white power skinheads, neo-fascists, and other political racists, particularly if they identify
… Read more themselves as skinheads. SHARPs aim to reclaim the multicultural identity of the original skinheads, hijacked in their views by white power skinheads, who they sometimes deride as "boneheads". Many people may confuse SHARP members with racists since their appearance is superficially similar. Beyond the common opposition to racism, SHARP professes no political ideology or affiliation, stressing the importance of the black Jamaican influence in the original late-1960s skinhead movement. The second SHARP logo is based on the logo of Trojan Records, which originally mainly released black Jamaican ska, rocksteady, and reggae artists. Local SHARP groups have spread around the world in many countries.
Red and Anarchist Skinheads (RASH) is a left-wing anti-racist, anti-fascist skinhead group, formed in the United States in 1993. The RASH values direct action and self-defense against neo-Nazis. The movement has its origins in the multi-ethnic roots of the skinhead cultural identity. It has multiple chapters on all continents.
RASH and SHARP define themselves heavily on fashion, music, and violent opposition to white supremacist organizations. Their style of dress typically incorporates Dr. Martens boots, jeans, suspenders, bomber and Harrington jackets, short hair, and clothing produced by Ben Sherman, Fred Perry, and Lonsdale. Musically, they are typically associated with punk, hardcore, oi, ska, reggae, and two-tone music genres.
Rude Boy (or rudie) is a slang term that originated in 1960s Jamaican street culture, and that is still used today. In the late 1970s, there was a revival in England of the terms rude boy and rude girl, among other variations, being used to describe fans of two-tone ska. The use of these terms moved into the more contemporary ska-punk movement as well. In the UK, the terms rude boy and rude girl are used in a way similar to gangsta, yardie, or badman. In the 1960s, the Jamaican diaspora introduced rude boy music and fashion to the UK, which influenced the mod and skinhead subcultures. In the late 1970s, the term rude boy and rude boy fashions came back into use after the ska band The
… Read more Specials and their record label 2 Tone Records instigated a brief but influential ska revival. In this spirit, The Clash contributed "Rudie Can't Fail" on their 1979 album, London Calling.
In Jamaica, the rude boys and rude girls were young Jamaican thugs from the ghettos, fallen into delinquency and sowing terror, some being real gangsters. In rage against the institutions, the economic fatality, they spit out their resentment of unemployment, injustices, and the immobility of capitalist society. Quite the opposite of teddy boys. They regularly go to sound systems where they sometimes play for a living.
In Great Britain, the rough boys listen mainly to ska music, which is characterized by groups like Madness or The Specials, which cover certain famous tracks of Prince Buster, recorded with Two-Tone Records, the "revival" of Jamaican ska, after the wave of the punk movement which saw the resurgence of former Jamaican artists, like Laurel Aitken, nicknamed the godfather of ska. They mingled with English mods in the 1960s, which gave birth to skinheads. the skinhead movement is, therefore, in its origins and in its traditions, a mixed and multicultural movement; it is not uncommon to see black skinheads in 1969 although many white skinheads will become politicized on the far right thereafter.
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