Monday, April 30, 2001
The University Daily Kansan
Section A · Page 7
LATE'70s
The punk music scene provides a new home for skins, especially in the United States. "Oil", a street movement including bands who sang about working-class issues, soon follows.
EARLY'80s
EARLY 80S The British National Front and neo-Nazis lure some skins to racism.
MIDTOLATE'80s
Tom Metzger forms the racist White Aryan Resistance, Neo-Nazis gain media attention with violence against ethnic groups. In 1988, talkshow host Geraldo Rivera breaks ratings records and his nose during a brawl between Black activist Roy Innis and Resistance leader John Metzger.
LATE'80s
Skinheads form the Anti-Racist Action and Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice. Others begin calling themselves "traditional" skinheads, distinguishing their working-class value system from racist "homeheads."
The Geraldo Rivera Show, 1988
Sources: Spirit of '69: A Skinhead Bible, by George Marshall and Subculture: The Meaning of Style, by Dick Hebdige.
"I didn't want to have to watch my back every time I went to buy a pack of cigarettes," says Nathan.19.
Music provides a common ground for skinheads and punks. A concert featuring Dropkick Murphy's attracted hundreds from both cultures earlier this month at the Granada. Photo by Nick Krug/KANSAN
Skinheads say that, despite their battles with neo Nazis, police mistakenly target them as racists.
Police profiling
In February, Alderson and four other skins exchanged words with a larger group of men outside a bar on Massachusetts Street. Alderson says an officer told the other, conservatively dressed, equally intoxicated group to leave and then ran records checks on the skins as the other group taunted them.
Depart now, don't bother. ask what you please.
"I don't really care what people look like — I just care about what they're doing," says Urbanek, who denies the existence of "skinhead files."
Lt. Ray Urbanek of the Lawrence Police Department doubts any discrimination took place.
Nathan says a Kansas City police officer called his skinhead friend "Hitler" while the two were being arrested.
"As they were taking me off, I could hear him under his breath saying 'Nazis, racists.' Nathan says.
But Lawrence police Sgt. Mike Pattrick says police are aware of nonracist skins.
"We go through enormous amounts of diversity training," he says.
Aura of intimidation
Skins have an intimidating aura, Johnston says, but his research revealed most of their fights as self-defense.
"In practice, I don't think they're as violent as a bunch of frat guys." Johnston says.
Hamm says traditional skinheads, despite their tough image, are "some of the sweetest, most intelligent, politically connected, courageous people of this generation." Hamm has protested with skins for environmental causes and at the School of Americas, the U.S. Army's controversial military academy for Latin Americans, he says.
Justin Unger, Overland Park junior, recounts being offended when he saw a neo-Nazi in downtown Lawrence. Unger acknowledges nonracist skins but views suspiciously anyone who adopts an appearance widely associated with the White power movement.
"I understand that they're ideologically different, but it’s a fine line in guilty-by-association." Unger says.
Friends and family of skinheads encounter similar judgment. Jennifer Proctor, 21, caught grief when she dated Alderson.
"When I first started dating Travis, my friends thought I'd lost my mind," she says.
Tracey Alderson, Alderson's sister, is angered by such judgments. An account executive for a Kansas City marketing company, Tracey says pictures in her office of Travis and his friends alarm coworkers. "I just tell them, 'You watch too much Nightline'" she says with a laugh.
Weary warriors
Battles with media, police and the public have exhausted some skins' motivation to explain themselves.
"When I first claimed, I wanted to tell everybody that I walked by," Nunn says. "And then you get tired of telling people because it's like you're here, and then there's the rest of the world."
Despite their indignation, skinheads don't expect warm receptions.
"When you choose to shave your head and put on the boots and braces," Nathan says, "you know fully going into it that it's not going to be easy."
A hairy future
Paszkiewicz no longer shaves his head. Like many older skins, he has altered his appearance but continues to call himself a skinhead.
Syko says most skins eventually distance themselves from the scene.
"I'll be a skinhead for the rest of my life, but that's just in here." Syko says, pointing to his heart.
just in here, "Syko says, pointing to his heart. Across the table, younger skins — Alderson, Meagher, Nunn — celebrate the end of another workweek, laughing and jesting with beers in hand. Syko stands out with his recently grown hair — a woolly beard on his face and dark, thick hair on his head. Beneath the hair is a tattooed scalp once bared to the world. But the fingers of his right hand remain unhidden, tattooed with an enigmatic term he and his friends say is worth defending.
Skinhead.
Edited by Brandy Straw
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