R.A.S.H.

                                                   History of Skinhead

 

In the media, they are syn­ony­mous with hat­red and vio­lence, but an­ti-​ra­cist skin­heads – in­clu­ding some who are black, Asian and Hi­spa­nic – are figh­ting to win back the sub­cul­tu­re from neo-​Na­zi groups.

Skin­heads in­dul­ge their pas­si­on for mo­shing at a show by the Oi! band, Ox­blood, at the Bank, a Man­hat­tan night­club. 

 

The Other Side of Skin­heads
Eric Deggans, Staff Wri­ter, As­bu­ry Park Press Sun­day

June 25, 1995
Be­fo­re you can ask, he‘ll hand you the card. Its sim­ple black-​and-​whi­te let­te­ring speaks vo­lu­mes.

„Pedro Angel Ser­ra­no. Ame­ri­can Skin­head. De­fen­der of Li­ber­ty. Scour­ge of Nazis.“ It’s such a pa­ra­dox that some who see the plain white busi­ness card have to read it twice. Scour­ge of Nazis? De­fen­der of li­ber­ty?

Since when did any of those tit­les fit a skin­head?

An­s­wer: since Ser­ra­no and others like him began what for them is an ever­y­day, li­fel­ong quest – to re­claim skin­head cul­tu­re and ima­ge­ry from neo-​Na­zis.

Throug­hout the state, loo­se­ly or­ga­ni­zed skin­head ac­tivists are figh­ting to re­sist the neo-​Na­zi ele­ment – using both legal and not-​so-​le­gal means. Their aim is to re­ta­ke a sub­cul­tu­re many of them say has been hi­ja­cked by gangs of ra­cist, an­ti-​Se­mi­tic, ho­mo­pho­bic „bo­ne-​heads“ (a not-​so-​en­dea­ring term for white su­pre­ma­cist skins).

 

A few ex­am­ples:

- In Ber­gen Coun­ty, a so­cia­list skin­head’s bid for Con­gress last No­vem­ber won an en­dor­se­ment from the Na­tio­nal Or­ga­niza­t­i­on for Women and sup­port from some mem­bers of the Gray Pan­thers, gar­ne­ring about 1 per­cent of the vote.

- Iggy Goleczyn­ski, a 49-​ye­ar-​old Polish im­mi­grant skin­head, runs Two Tone – a store in Pas­saic de­vo­ted to skin­head cul­tu­re, minus the ra­cist over-​to­nes. That means iron cross je­wel­ry, swas­ti­ka patches and any other signs of bone­head cul­tu­re are ban­ned from the in­ven­to­ry.

- A small but determined co­ali­ti­on of skins from New Jer­sey, New York and Con­nec­ticut are wor­king to re­sur­rect the group SHARP (Skin­heads Against Ra­ci­al Pre­ju­di­ce) in Man­hat­tan, hoping to bring am­bi­va­lent young skin­heads into the an­ti-​ra­cism fold.

„Peop­le only know one kind of skin­head, be­cau­se that’s all you see on ‚Ge­ral­do‘ or the news shows,“ said Dar­yle La­mont Jenk­ins, a co­lum­nist for the Brid­ge­wa­ter Cou­rier News and host of his own cable ac­cess te­le­vi­si­on show, „Chan­nel X.“

„I‘ve been han­ging with non-​ra­cist skins for about five years now,“ said Jenk­ins, who is black. „It was a lar­ger group back in the ’80s but a lot of them got old, tired of the stig­ma, or just moved on.“

 

Buck­ing the ste­reo­ty­pe

Sit­ting in his cram­ped New Bruns­wick apart­ment, Pedro Ser­ra­no, a 36-​ye­ar-​old son of Pu­er­to Rican im­mi­grants, fits the clas­sic skin­head image: clo­se­ly shorn head, steel-​to­ed Doc Mar­tens and a brai­ded string of a beard han­ging from his chin.

But there are no swas­ti­kas, iron cros­ses or ra­cist ta­toos adorning his wiry frame. And, as the en­er­ge­tic skin spins tales of growing up in Ne­wark’s Co­lum­bus Homes hou­sing pro­ject („I am a pro­duct offood stamps and ma­ke-​work pro­grams,“ he de­cla­res, only half-​jo­kingly), ano­ther truth emer­ges.

Ser­ra­no is gay.

„I knew I had this attrac­tion to men, but I‘m not gay . . . I have sex with men, but I‘m not a ho­mo­se­xu­al,“ he said sar­cas­ti­cal­ly, re­cal­ling his own de­ni­al be­fo­re coming to terms with his se­xu­al ori­en­ta­ti­on. „Now, I‘m a crew of my own.“

Ser­ra­no has ear­ned a re­pu­ta­ti­on as an ac­tivist skin who op­po­ses the sub­cul­tu­re’s ra­cist con­tin­gent. He hel­ped spread the word about coun­ter­pro­tests against a 1993 neo-​Na­zi rally in New Hope, Pa., and or­ga­ni­zed a fund-​rai­sing CD, „Love is Best,“ for the Pride Cen­ter of New Jer­sey – a gay and les­bi­an com­mu­ni­ty cen­ter in New Bruns­wick.

„A lot of times, skins want to avoid tal­king po­li­tics, be­cau­se that di­vi­des peop­le – and you have these left-​wing and right-​wing groups co­ming around with one agen­da: recruit­ment,“ said Ser­ra­no, who is also de­ve­loping his own an­ti-​ra­cist skin fan­zine, Bro­ther Outs­i­der.

„But if we don‘t start de­fi­ning this stuff, then somebody else is going to do it for us.“

 

A con­tra­dic­tion in terms?

If some news re­ports are to be be­lie­ved, the term ‚‘an­ti-​ra­cist skin­head“ is an oxy­mo­ron.

Most ex­perts agree the skin­head sub­cul­tu­re emer­ged In late 1960s Eng­land, fol­lowing the mi­xing of white Bri­tish wor­king-​class kids and Ja­mai­can im­mi­grants faith­ful to the Kings­ton street gang known as „Rude Boys.“

Ac­cor­ding to cri­mi­no­lo­gist Mark Hamm’s book, „Ame­ri­can skin­heads,“ the col­li­si­on crea­ted a sub­cul­tu­re that va­lu­ed a dis­tor­ted vi­si­on of the model wor­ker. Ja­mai­can im­mi­grants brought clo­se-​crop­ped hair and a pas­si­on for ska music (an up­beat, dance­able ver­si­on of reg­gae), while the English cont­ri­bu­ted wor­king-​class pride, an ag­gres­si­ve ma­chis­mo and love of beer drin­king.

These newly chris­tened skin­heads – and their un­of­fi­ci­al uni­form, in­clu­ding steel-​to­ed Doc Mar­ten boots, work shirts and jeans – star­ted as a trans­ra­ci­al ce­le­bra­ti­on. But wi­t­hin a few years in Bri­tain, gangs of skins had begun ba­shing Pa­kis­ta­ni im­mi­grants, ho­mo­se­xu­als and hip­pies, dis­credit­ing the sub­cul­tu­re, Hamm said.

Now, groups that seem – at first glan­ce, any­way – their mo­dern-​day des­cen­dants, are grab­bing head­lines: ra­cist skin­heads in Ke­ans­burg ac­cu­sed of vio­lent­ly brea­king up a party whose host, they, said, was fri­end­ly with non-​whi­tes; gangs of Bri­tish skin­head „soc­cer hoo­li­gans“ ac­cu­sed of rio­ting when nonw­hi­te teams excel; groups of skin­heads using com­pu­ter net­works to spread mes­sa­ges of vio­lence, an­ti-​Se­mi­tism and ra­ci­al hat­red.

The tales pile up until there’s no se­pa­ra­ting the terms „neo-​Na­zi“ and „’skin­head“ in the pu­blic mind.

Even the ex­perts can‘t agree. „The skin­head mo­ve­ment in this coun­try is a neo-​Na­zi mo­ve­ment – it star­ted that way,“ said Mil­ton Kleg di­rec­tor of the Cen­ter for the Study of Eth­nic and Ra­ci­al Vio­lence in Den­ver.

Ask Kleg how many of the 2,000 to 10,000 skin­heads he esti­ma­tes live in Ame­ri­ca are non-​ra­cist and he ll tell you there aren‘t any. „You may have a po­cket (of non ra­cist skins) there on the East Coast, but I tend to think that’s an ano­ma­ly.“

Other hate group watch­dogs – the Sou­t­hern Po­ver­ty Law Cen­ter’s Klan­watch and B‘nai B‘rith’s An­ti-​De­fa­ma­ti­on Le­ague among them – admit both ra­cist and non-​ra­cist skin­heads exist. But ask what per­cen­ta­ge is which, and you won‘t get much fur­ther.

„We don‘t re­al­ly mo­ni­tor an­ti-​ra­cist groups,“ said Lau­rie Wood, a re­se­ar­cher for Klan­watch, „so we don‘t know much about them.“

Even the ADL – which in 1993 esti­ma­ted that no more than 400 skin­leads, spread across 30 gangs, were ac­tive in New Jer­sey – doesn‘t re­al­ly know how many non-​ra­cist or an­ti-​ra­cist skins may be a part of the sub­cul­tu­re.

„We‘re tal­king, in large me­a­su­re, about very young peop­le who’se own at­ti­tu­des are not fully for­med, said Tom Hal­pern, head of fact fin­ding on skin­heads for the ADL’s Man­hat­tan of­fice. „We‘ve seen oc­ca­si­ons of de­fec­tion from the non-​ra­cist to the ra­cist camps, which makes tra­cking tough.“

The group’s dif­fi­cul­ty in mo­ni­to­ring skin­heads re­flects the mer­cu­ri­al na­tu­re of a na­ti­onwi­de, un­der­ground youth sub­cul­tu­re.

 

A Pas­si­on for ag­gres­si­on

There’s ano­ther, sim­pler truth that keeps some minds clo­sed to non-​ra­cist skin­heads: Ra­cist or not, the sub­culture’s fo­un­da­ti­on in­clu­des a tough, street-​le­vel ethic that va­lues drin­king, phy­si­cal vio­lence and ter­ri­to­ri­al, gangland-​style turf wars.

In short – as even an­ti-​ra­cist ac­tivists admit – non-​Na­zi skins are no an­gels, eit­her.

„Ba­si­cal­ly, skin­heads have this mi­li­tant at­ti­tu­de … a pas­si­on … where they al­ways want to ques­ti­on aut­ho­rity,“ ex­plained Iggy Goleczyn­ski, the non-​ra­cist, 49-​ye­ar-​old skin who owns Two Tone. „Skin­heads like to brawl, be­cau­se when peop­le drink – es­pe­ci­al­ly young peop­le – they want to fight.“

„You‘re dea­ling with kids who feel se­pa­ra­ted from so­cie­ty,“ added Greg Pason, the 29-​ye­ar-​old, non-​ra­cist skin­head who chal­len­ged power­ful De­mocra­tic in­cum­bent Ro­bert G. Tori­cel­li in last year’s 9th Con­gres­sio­nal Di­strict elec­tions.

„These are street kids for the most part,“ he said. „You can‘t make saints out of skin­heads. These are disgrunt­led kids and they get into trou­b­le.“

Still, Pason hopes to har­ness the en­er­gy of Man­hat­tan’s growing seg­ment of young, non-​ra­cist skins by re­vi­ta­lizing SHARP there. To avoid turning off young skins weary of po­li­ti­cal talk, their em­pha­sis – at least, at first – will cen­ter on provi­ding „safe“ spots for bor­der­li­ne skins to gat­her and share an an­ti-​ra­cist, non-​ho­mo­pho­bic vibe.

Now all they have to do is find some other skins who agree.

„It seems (a lot) of skins in New York aren‘t white – they‘re Asian and Hi­spa­nic,“ said Terry R., who re­quested her last name be wi­th­held. A 21-​ye­ar-​old skin­head ac­tivist of Ve­ne­zue­lan he­ri­ta­ge, Terry R. re­mains hope­ful she, Pason and other ac­tivists can re­start SHARP.

Though law en­force­ment agen­cies in New Bruns­wick and Pas­saic, Mon­mouth and Ocean coun­ties could not re­call any spe­ci­fic, on­go­ing pro­blems with an­ti-​ra­cist skin­heads, many re­main skep­ti­cal of the ac­tivists‘ an­ti-​ra­cism claims.

„Though they may be SHARPS, they‘re still a gang by our de­fi­ni­ti­on,“ said L. Louis Jor­dan, a de­tec­tive in the Mon­mouth Coun­ty pro­se­cu­tor’s of­fice, and an ex­pert on gangs and bias cri­mes.

„Not all skin­heads are bad, but some SHARPS are in­vol­ved with drug traf­fi­cking and other law-​brea­king, so we‘re ke­eping an eye on them,“ Jor­dan added. „And if they beat up some ra­cist skin­heads, that’s still brea­king the law.“

 

Dis­tor­ted by media

Many an­ti-​ra­cist skins say the as­sump­ti­on that all skin­heads are neo-​Na­zis stems from a sim­ple sour­ce – a sen­sa­tio­na­list media se­ar­ching for con­tro­ver­sy.

„It’s be­co­me a mo­ve­ment, when it (star­ted as) just a style and a way of life,“ said Tren­ton-​ba­sed skin­head Tra­vis Nel­son, a sin­ger with the New Bruns­wick-​ba­sed ska band, In­spec­ter 7. „Now, we‘ve got to de­fend our­sel­ves from all the crap.

„If you‘re against ra­cism, it’s hard to say that’s a political thing – it’s just so­me­thing you feel in­si­de,“ added Nel­son who is half black. He said he tried to set the re­cord straight by ap­pearing on „Ge­ral­do“ – but said the talk show host was less than wil­ling to lis­ten.

„I tal­ked for about two mi­nu­tes and once he saw I wasn‘t a big an­ti-​Na­zi big­wig, he didn‘t want to talk to me,“ Nel­son said, an­gri­ly. „He just wan­ted cra­zi­ness like ever­yo­ne else. I wan­ted to hit hm with a chair,mys­elf.“

Too often, Pedro Ser­ra­no said, the media’s mis­in­forma­ti­on plays into the hands of ra­cist skins – hoping to gain ma­xi­mum ex­po­su­re for their-​ own ideo­lo­gy of hate.

Du­ring a trip to a New York con­cert with In­spec­ter7, Ser­ra­no com­mi­se­ra­ted with num­bers of black, Asian and Hi­spa­nic skins – drawn to the sub­cul­tu­re by a love for ska or punk rock or each other, but de­di­ca­ted to non ra­cism by vir­tue of their skin color.

I ve had idiots ask me about being (a neo-​Na­zi),“ said Tor­rey Lloyd, a twen­ty­so­me­thing black skin­head who lived for a time in New Bruns­wick with mem­bers of Ser­ra­no’s „crew“ of fri­ends.

Wea­ring white sho­elaces thre­a­ded through his Doc Mar­tens – a White Power skin­head sym­bol so­me­ti­mes worn by black, Asian or Hi­spa­nic skins as a show of re­bel­li­on – Lloyd see­med to take plea­su­re in shat­te­ring myths about what a skin­head should be.

„(Peop­le) won­der-​ why a black per­son would be a skin­head,“ he added. „But I‘ve al­ways had a wor­king-​class out­look … pride in mys­elf and where I‘m from. When I star­ted han­ging out at punk shows in CBGB’s the skins see­med to be the ones who re­al­ly had it to­ge­ther.“

Ac­cor­ding to Goleczyn­ski, the toug­hest as­pect of figh­ting ra­cism is matching the lock­step co­he­si­on that binds their neo-​Na­zi ad­ve­r­a­ries.

Those who hate … they seem more de­di­ca­ted to it than the peop­le who fight them,“ the shop­kee­per re­mar­ked. „A ra­cist will get 200 acres, put to­ge­ther a com­pu­ter network and these camps where peop­le can drink beer and shoot guns. But there’s not (a) si­mi­lar an­ti-​ra­cist who would de­di­ca­te all his time and money to figh­ting ra­cism.“

As Eli Rit­chey, a 30ish an­ti-​ra­cist skin from Ocean Town­ship, put it: „Most an­ti-​ra­cists have bet­ter things to do – like jobs and lives.“ Rit­chey is a coun­selor at the Youth Ad­vo­ca­te Pro­gram in Midd­le­sex Bo­rough

There is a dan­ger in op­po­sing ra­cist ele­ments. „You can be tar­ge­ted,“ said one skin who re­fu­sed to give his name. Cit­ing a 1992 at­tack by mem­bers of the White Rule Union and Eas­tern Ham­mer Skin­heads at a party in Ke­ans­burg, the burly skin de­tai­led other ex­am­ples of ra­cist skins bea­ting and threa­te­ning to shoot those who are open­ly an­ti-​ra­cist.

But faced with a growing group of young skins who claim to be non­po­li­ti­cal – usual­ly mea­ning they‘re not ac­tive­ly ra­cist, but prone to lean in any di­rec­tion their fel­low skins may fol­low – ac­tivists like Ser­ra­no, Pason and Goleczyn­ski con­ti­nue to spread the word of an an­ti-​ra­cist al­ter­na­ti­ve. They re­gard their mis­si­on as a ne­ver-​en­ding strugg­le to reach the minds and hearts of a sub­cul­tu­re that seems to keep get­ting youn­ger.

„Peop­le usual­ly grow out of this by their mid-​20s, but I‘m 35 and I‘m still in it,“ Ser­ra­no said, shrug­ging. „I‘m not sure if it’s a sign of ar­rested de­ve­lop­ment or being com­mit­ted.“