Talk:Skinhead

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Contents

[edit] Timeline

Uh call me crazy but weren't there skinheads in the 19th century? I've actually heard this from a skinhead. Can anyone verify this? 71.68.17.141 17:53, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

  • The skinhead subculture started in England in the 1960s. Any other claims or theories are untrue. Spylab 23:04, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Foreign Baldies

The movie 'The Wanderers', which I think is set in the Bronx, 1963, features the gang the Foreign Baldies. They are clearly skinheads, but there is no explanation of them as a cultural phenomenon on this site. Did gangs like that exist, or were they just the invention of the 1970s filmmakers? Do tell. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.79.252.192 (talk) 10:38, 19 March 2007 (UTC).

  • They were called the Fordham Baldies, which was the name of a real Bronx, New York gang. However, according to at least two sites, the "baldies" in the real-life gang's name has nothing to do with the length of their hair: http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=%22Fordham+Baldies%22&btnG=Search&meta= The filmmakers were using creative license by portraying the gang members as actually being bald, and they don't have anything to do with skinheads. And even if the real gang members did shave their heads, skinhead-ism is a subculture involving various elements, not just a hairstyle. Spylab 17:06, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Picture

Skinhead with scooter?

1. Why Scooter? 2. He has Hair on his head!!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.165.251.60 (talk) 15:50, 22 March 2007 (UTC). 3. That guy is me. Why the removal of pic? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.82.64.62 (talk) 18:00, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

  1. Scooters were a mod tradition, and some skinheads have continued that tradition.
  2. The guy's hair in that picture is actually shorter than the hair of most skinheads in the 1960s. The name skinhead doesn't mean members of the subculture have to be totally bald like Mr. Clean. It was not until the late 1970s or early 1980s that some skinheads started to totally shave their hair off, based on personal choice. Spylab 16:19, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Traditional skinheads

The political part talks about how 'traditional' skinheads call certain other skinheads various names based on their political views, but it doesn't explain what 'traditional' skinheads are political wise Nil Einne 09:04, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Traditional skinheads are more concerned about the music, clothing, football and socializing aspect of the skinhead subculture. They generally keep their personal political beliefs (whether left or right) out of the skinhead scene, other than the occasional rant among friends, like any other type of person. Most of them are patriotic though, although even that isn't an absolute necessity. See Trojan skinhead and Spirit of 69 for some more info. Spylab 17:49, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Skinhed mowement in Russia

Thera are some articles, that most of worlds skinheads/neonazi live in Russia. (throught I don't find in english) Caucasian beats fat skinhead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-CsF0C5Xwg&mode=related&search=

[edit] Bigotry/Nationalism from the get-go (a contradiction)

There are some claims within the article that seem to me to be at odds with one another: If the "hard mods became commonly known as skinheads by about 1968" and then "In the late 1960s, some skinheads (including black skinheads) had engaged in random violence against Pakistanis and other South Asian immigrants (an act known as Paki bashing in common slang)", why is the the claim made that "race, religion and national origin were never a part of being a skinhead"?

Since there is little to no time in the "late 1960's" in-between the ~1968 birth of the Skins and when Paki-bashing began, I modified the text to read

While opinions on race, religion, and national origin were unifying components of some skinhead gangs, today there are many people within the skinhead subculture who have a wide variety of political and sociological ideologies.

Seekue 10:00, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

  • I think the better thing to do is just delete the whole sentence, since it is not backed up by a reference. Spylab 12:54, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I restored the word random to the phrase "...some skinheads (including black skinheads) had engaged in random violence against..." because it means they chose a random person on the street to beat up based on their ethnicity, instead of beating them up for some specific personal reason (i.e. the person owed them money, slept with their girlfriend, stole their belongings etc.). They didn't go out and say, "There's so-and-so, I'm going to kick his ass." They picked a random Asian and beat him up for the hell of it.Spylab 13:06, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

    • I added a citation. The paragraph should not just go away because it may put Skins in a bad light. The introduction of the entry should be honest about the fact that there were bigot Skins from the beginning, even if the idea that they were all just part of a fun-loving group of working class boot boys is more appealing.Seekue 18:15, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

That citation was about a gang that started in 1977, which is about a decade after the skinhead subculture started, so it did not back up the statement about "early skinheads." It's not a matter of deleting content that puts skinheads in a bad light or a good light; the rest of the article delves into all the sociopolitical issues and doesn't attempt to change history. It's a matter of having accurate content backed up by references. As it stands, the intro has too much generalization and unencyclopedic language. I am now going to try to make it more formal and neutral.Spylab 21:34, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

  • The same citation I used is also used later in the wiki article with mention of Paki-bashing. Specifically that it took place in the late 60's. Please note the following quotes from my cited article:

Paki-bashing during the late Sixties was very much of its time

“People harp on about the old days and in the Sixties and stuff like that with the reggae music,” says Paul Burnley. “Even back then there were racist skinheads, but not so much affiliated to political parties."

The facts show that nationalism and/or bigotry was part of the early Skin subculture. Sure it may be embarrassing, but them are the brass tacks. I look forward to see where you go with the article, but do not ignore that there were "original Skinheads" who were bigots.Seekue 23:44, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I concede your point about that reference, and in no way am I ignoring that some (not all) of the 1960s skinheads were bigots — like many British people in general at that time. As you can see, I deleted POV-ish phrases like "brotherhood/sisterhood" because that seemed to be too much editorializing. However, from what I've read (including in posts on message boards by people who were actually part of the 1960s skinhead scene) and seen in documentary videos, anti-Asian violence was not a big focus of the skinhead subculture at that time. It seems that the focus was mostly on things like fashion, music, football, girls, alcohol; and that most of the fighting was against other skinheads or people from other subcultures, not random people based on their ethnicity. Spylab 00:24, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Skinheads in Russia

Why was the link to the article about the Russian skinheads removed? This is a verbatim quote from the recently released Human Rights Watch report:

In 2006 there were at least 439 racially-motivated attacks, including the stabbing of a nine-year-old Tajik girl. Forty-four of these attacks resulted in the victim’s death. Most often the perpetrators of these violent acts are groups of young men and women who profess a neo-fascist ideology and are known as "Neo-Nazis" or "skinheads".(see page 19)

. --KoberTalk 15:11, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The futility of "most skinheads are..." statements

I'm removing the part:

although as early as 1970 there were already many skinheads in the White Nationalist British National Front]].[4] Since then racist attitudes have become predominant in the skinhead sub-culture. Today most Skinheads are racist(even if they aren't all Neo-Nazi) although some skinheads remain apolitical or aligned to the Far Left.

The first (partial) sentence contradicts the first part of the sentence it's in. That's perfectly fine in the body text, but the introductory paragraph needs to be simple and general. If you think this information is significant (I don't, but it has a citation so I'll be openminded), why not expand on it and merge it into the History section?

The rest of the quote is subjective impression at most. It can't be substantiated, because it speaks of skinheads worldwide, and nobody with any authority has made an attempt even to define who is or isn't a skinhead in different parts of the world, let alone survey them on their political attitudes or any other characteristic. Thus "most skinheads are" statements are unsupportable. This has been discussed before, on the archived talk page; see Talk:Skinhead/archive_1#Demographics --Unconventional 14:49, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Sviatoslav86 reverted these edits with the edit summary "Re-inserted FACTS. Including one which is backed up by a source."
Well, Sviatoslav86, let's talk about that "source" which I ignored earlier. It's a blurry YouTube clip of 0:25 duration which seems to be excerpted from a British documentary, based on the narrator's accent and tone. It shows an interminate number of young people, perhaps 20, marching with a police escort. Some are throwing Nazi salutes and shouting "Sieg Heil". It's not hard to identify at least some of the people as skinheads.
Unfortunately, it does nothing to establish the year as 1970, or that the skinheads are marching for the BNP. Those claims come only from the YouTube uploader Hora111, who claims to be 24 and Swedish and so couldn't know those facts first hand. There is no chain of verifiability here at all, hence it is a worthless source. In any event, you didn't address my argument that it belongs deeper in the body of the article, not in the introduction. I invited you to move it to the History section, but looking more closely I see it's already covered in the section following that.
As for the rest of the deletion, statements are not FACTS because you insist they are. Please respond to my argument above about why blanket statements classifying skinheads politically are unsupportable. If you have verifiable knowledge of worldwide skinhead demographics, I'd love to see it. Otherwise, you're just POV pushing. If you feel it's necessary, we can call in additional interested editors to join the discussion. --Unconventional 22:41, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Monkey Jackets

To the person who said there is no such thing as a monkey jacket, see the following link: http://www.modrevival.net/MonkeyJacket.jpg They have been worn by mods and skinheads. Spylab (talk) 21:49, 13 January 2008 (UTC)