skinheads essays

skinheads essays Skinheads are working class citizens that enjoy music and beer, yet they are continually portrayed as racists and bigots. Skinheads are constantly called Nazis, but skinheads originated as working class men from England many years earlier. Skinheads spend most of their time with other like-minded individuals. A group of skinheads is usually called a crew. Unlike gangs, crews are relatively non-violent unless provoked. They dress in simple and classy style at all times to showcase their working class roots. Most skinheads will continue living the Skinhead lifestyle until the day they die. Skinhead roots began during the late 1960's when the Jamaican rude boy subculture mingled with the British mod subculture. A rude boy is best defined as a "cool super-hooligan." Rude in Jamaican vernacular meant wild, violent, or reckless. These rude boys were best portrayed in such songs as Desmond Dekker's "007 (Shanty Town)", "Rude Boy Train", and many other such releases. A rude boy is now portrayed as a person who listens to reggae and ska music primarily, dressing in nice clothes and suits. The term mod is short for modernist. Mod is a direct outgrowth of Post War Britain, when all the teenagers suddenly had a disposable income and a desire to find an identity beyond a schoolboy or workingman. The product of this marriage would be what we today call a skinhead. Skinheads preferred physical labor to the mod ideals of effortless work. There were several theories on why the skinheads cropped their hair short and began wearing boots. One theory is that "the rougher kids began cutting their hair close, both to aid their fashion and to prevent their hair from hindering them in street fights." The other theory is being that "the shaved head and steel toed boots originated amongst the dock workers who required the safety of steel toed boots and shaved their heads as a precaution against head lice." After work, skinheads would ...