BECOMING A SKINHEAD

Youth Subcultures and Subculturization

Many scholars view youth subcultural participation as an attempt "…to resolve collectively-experienced problems arising from contradictions in the social structure." (Brake, 1980: vii). The Birmingham school posited adolescence as a time of establishing identity and status beyond the ascribed identities and statuses of family, education and occupation; race, class, and gender (Ibid.: 93-94). This time of life can be particularly problematic for lower-class youth, who have lower ascribed status and lack the legitimized access to the means for achieving hegemonic goals and mainstream signifiers of high status. This strain between culture goals and the institutionalized means for achieving them leaves the individual with five options, one of which Merton termed "rebellion," (1957) which we may also term "subculturization" (Brake, 1980: 5). Through subculturization &endash; participation in a subculture &endash; youth reject the hegemonic goals and values of mainstream (read: middle-class) culture and instead adopt a subcultural system of values and goals that is within their means. In doing so, lower-class subcultural participants avoid "'the middle-class measuring rod'" (Ibid.: 43) which threatens their status by demeaning their ascribed identities and statuses (Ibid.: 40) by creating a more salient subcultural identity which affords them an attractive self-image and higher status (Ibid.: 18). According to this theoretical perspective, youth subcultures thus offer lower-class youth a collective solution to a commonly-experienced problem of status discrepency.

The Birmingham School noted differences between working-class and middle class youth subcultures in their formation, organization and value systems. Middle-class youth subcultures tended to be geographically-diffuse, more influenced by international cultures, and have value systems that consist of sometimes extreme distortions of middle-class values such as self-growth and individuality (Ibid.: 86; 165). In contrast, working-class subcultures tend to be geographically-based with intensive local peer group interaction, whose participants are involved in leisure activities that contest the control of adult authority (Ibid.). The value systems of working-class youth subcultures tend to align more with those of the parent culture (that is, those of their class, not those middle-class values that represent the hegemonic value system) (Epstein, 1998: 9). Whereas the radicalism of a middle-class youth subculture might be oriented towards moral social reforms, working-class radicalism will be geared to economic or material reforms (Parkin, 1968: 2).

Punk As A Gateway Subculture

Becoming a skinhead necessitates prior knowledge of the subculture. The existence of anti-racist skinheads in North America becomes perplexing when taking into consideration the media orthodoxy, which portrays skinheads as, by definition, racist. In order for one to become an anti-racist skinhead, one first has to be aware that such a subcultural option exists &endash; something the media, legal and political authorities, and academics have thus far done a poor job of advancing.

I discovered that every member of SHARP Montréal had been involved in the punk subculture prior to becoming a skinhead &endash; something also noted in other ethnographic examinations of North American skinheads (Young and Craig, 1997:184), as well as in interviews I conducted with anti-racist skinheads in other cities in early 2002. For example, Christian, a 21-year-old member of SHARP, "was a punk" for "maybe three years or something like that" and currently plays guitar in a punk band, along with some other members of SHARP. Darice, a 24-year-old female SHARP member, was a punk for several years, while interacting with and even dating skinheads. Edward, a 22-year-old male and the sole member of SHARP Montréal who I interviewed that denied being a punk at any point, nonetheless mentioned playing in a punk band in high school.

There is much overlap between the interaction sites of punk and skinhead subcultures in North America. The downtown parks, food courts, bars and concert venues preferred by punks are frequented also by skinheads, and vice-versa. In this way, youth involved in the punk subculture engage in face-to-face interactions with the kinds of skinheads not portrayed in the mass media &endash; non- and anti-racist skinheads. Darice recalls that her first encounter with a skinhead:

…was, I guess I was in the 9th grade, so I guess I was about 14, and I was a punk and I was really fucked up on drugs!…I went downtown and I was supposed to meet a friend at Devonian Gardens (a public park within a downtown shopping mall, a popular hang-out spot for youth in Calgary) and I was so screwed up I couldn't figure out where I was or where Devonian Gardens was. And so I started crying on the mall (a downtown pedestrian mall, also a favourite hang-out spot) and this skinhead came up to me and I remember his patch. It said: Rude Boys, on his jacket. And he was sort of making fun of me, because I'm sure I looked ridiculous.

Punk acts as a sort of gateway subculture, providing punk subcultural participants with opportunities to interact directly with skinheads. This interaction creates skinhead as a viable subcultural option for punks, allowing them to entertain the notion of becoming a skinhead, after having immersed themselves to varying degrees in the punk subculture.

External "push" factors also appear to figure significantly in the decision of many to make the transition from punk to skinhead, particularly for working-class youth. For working-class youth involved in punk, the subculture's distinctly middle-class emphasis on self-expression and maximizing the shock value of appearance by lampooning middle-class conventions eventually collide with more pressing material concerns. Christian explains his transition from punk to skinhead as having to do with "…needing to get a job so I had to shave my mohawk off." Darice recounted that being a punk with a mohawk and having to find work in the service industry meant having to first buy a wig to conceal her outlandish hairstyle &endash; a problem that was far less of an issue after she got her first "Chelsea."(4) Clearly, working-class youth involved in the punk subculture encountered barriers to employment due to the sartorial style of punk. One solution is found in the transition to skinhead, a subculture whose boundary can be softened or turned off with some minor change in appearance. Edward explains:

Well, for sure sometimes you have to be careful about the way you're dressed, if you're going to go get a job, people don't really know about it. People are going to think something bad about you. After a while, once they get to know you, you can explain what you're really about, and they'll go, "Wow! That's really fucking cool!" But, if you go see the same guy for a job and he doesn't know you, and you come with your turn-ups, suspenders and all that, I don't think he's going to call you for a job. Sometimes you have to be somebody else to go do your stuff.

Montréal SHARP members indicated that the transition to skinhead was met with less hostility by their families than the initial transition to punk. Skinheads have a cleaner, neater, and more conventionally-presentable appearance than punks and the skinhead value system more closely mirrors that of working-class parent culture. Christian recounts that his parents' reacted to his becoming a skinhead with much less hostility than when he came home with a mohawk haircut as a punk. Darice recalls that her mother, who "absolutely detested the fact that I would want to, as she would put it, 'make myself ugly'" by adopting the punk sartorial style, was more accepting of the skinhead style Darice gradually shifted into. Edward notes that "When you're a punk it's like, you beg for money, and you squeegee and you squat and you don't care. I think maybe skinhead is more like, I wouldn't say mature, but just more like, maybe, you know, work and everything…You have to be involved in society, I think. You don't need to have the biggest job, but at least get a job. Do something for society, don't get your cheque from the government."

For working-class youth involved in the punk subculture, skinhead becomes a viable subcultural option that permits them continued participation within the punk subculture while simultaneously setting them apart within that subculture. More importantly, it solves material concerns that may arise and may also reduce familial tensions over their subcultural participation by more clearly reflecting the class-based values of their parent culture.

(4) The feminine version of the skinhead crop, featuring bangs and wisps of longer hair near both ears and in the back.