BECOMING A SHARP: SKINHEAD FACTIONS, FACTIONAL BOUNDARIES AND INTER-FACTIONAL INTERACTION

Factional splits within the skinhead subculture tend to occur along political lines. "Skinheads generally organize themselves into groups or 'crews,' often distinguished on the basis of their political orientation." (Young and Craig, 1997: 182). This is perhaps an unusual basis for factional distinctions in a youth subculture, but the explanation for it reveals much pertaining to the politicization of the skinhead subculture. The original skinheads, clearly class-conscious if not otherwise overtly political in orientation, held a cynical worldview in which "they saw the world as run by an elite composed of the wealthy and the bosses ('guvnors'), who exploited the working man." (Brake, 1974: 196). The subculture itself may have functioned as an accommodative response to the inequities inherent in the English class structure (Tanner, 1978: 350). Skinhead created a cultural space in which working-class youths were able to question the legitimacy of the distribution of wealth and power, stopping short of coming up with alternatives or solutions.

Early skinhead style was "of a symbolic nature, finding expression in a leisure style, through use of dress and activities, rather than confrontations at the work place or involvement in community politics." (Tanner, 1978: 360). However, as the limitations of symbolic, stylistic solutions to the problems of status skinheads sought to revolve grew apparent, skinhead politicized. This polarized politicization and subsequent confrontation has been restricted to interaction sites within the subculture and between factions of the subculture.

The politicization of the skinhead subculture was crucial to the survival of the subculture. Purely symbolic solutions had to evolve into more something more concrete for the subculture to survive into its third decade. It was inevitable that skinheads would eventually seek out or create the political alternatives or solutions that their subcultural forebears stopped short of, even at the cost of factionalizing the subculture. Skinhead was compelled to eventually develop a political conscience by the oppositional role it placed itself in. In North America, this politicization of the subculture forms the basis of factional boundaries within the subculture. For the faction of Montréal skinheads belonging to SHARP, this political conscience is centred around class consciousness and in opposition to racism.

The heterogeneity of the Montréal skinhead subculture is readily apparent to members of both the skinhead and punk subculture and members of either subculture will be able to tell you the factional allegiances of any given skinhead in the city. A status hierarchy of factions also functions in the Montréal skinhead subculture. Montréal SHARP members had definite opinions about which position each faction held in this status hierarchy, based on the respective size and "quality" of the "crew"; the length of time faction members had identified as skinheads; "special" knowledge of the subcultural history, beliefs and values; the display of the various elements of the skinhead sartorial style; and especially on political ideology. Naturally, all members saw SHARP as occupying the top position of this status hierarchy. "If I thought there was a better crew of skinheads around, ones that I could count on, you know, I'd go join them instead!" remarked Edward.

Although SHARP was clearly regarded as one faction in this hierarchy, its members did not necessarily wish for it to be considered a faction. Ovide lamented the possibility of SHARP being regarded as a separate skinhead faction: "I hope not. I don't want it to be. And the fact is, I want traditional skinheads to see their place in it." Nat, the oldest member of SHARP, felt the same as Ovide, and often wore a Harrington jacket with the words "Traditional Skinhead" embroidered on the back. Other SHARP members strongly identified their factional allegiance with SHARP. Christian explained to me that Sol was "not a redskin, but he says, 'I'm a SHARP.' Before anything. He'll never say, 'I'm a traditional skinhead,'" even if that more accurately describes him.

Redskins and Anarchist Skins

Montréal is one of a small number of North American cities with a skinhead subculture that includes a number of skinheads who hold highly-defined extreme left political ideologies - the redskins and anarchist skinheads. One non-SHARP redskin I encountered even claimed to be a Stalinist, which perhaps explained his unpopularity with other leftist skinheads. Several members of SHARP identified themselves as redskins or anarchist skins. Christian explains that redskins are "skinheads, but they're communists and everything. They're like other skins, too, except they're more into politics. Class war, anti-racism, and everything. There's anarchist skinheads too. I don't know, there's nothing really different with being an anarchist skin. Maybe just the political belief. Anarchist is not the same as communist. That's about it."

Despite being in a group with several redskins and anarchist skins, Edward saw their political ideologies as being more congruent with a transitional period he associates with being young and involved in the punk subculture than with the skinhead subculture. "I never talked to them about what they were standing for," he told me, "but when I heard the name, 'Red and Anarchist Skinheads,' for me it doesn't make sense. I've, like a lot of people when they're young and they're punk, they're like 'oh, Anarchy!' They don't know what they want and all that. And when you become a skinhead, you know what you stand for. You're working, you choose to follow a line. I mean, you take the line you want but, anarchy skinheads? It's like, whoa!"

Independent Skinheads

Many skinheads do not align themselves with any particular faction, and are typically referred to as "independent skins" within the subculture. In Montréal, this includes a number of former SHARP members, most of whom left the group amicably, some of whom did not. At one Oi! concert I attended, I noticed many independent skinheads, including several former SHARP members, sharing the space directly in front of the stage with a large number of SHARP members, without any noticeable tension or animosity between the groups. This point is significant. At punk and Oi! concerts, the front of the stage constitutes a space known as "the pit" where audience members frequently "mosh" or "slam", dancing by crashing into each other. The pit is often a contested space where tensions between subcultural members are acted upon physically. Fights at concerts typically begin in the pit. It seemed noteworthy that SHARP members and former SHARP members were able to share this space without any apparent hostility towards each other. Likewise for SHARP members and other skinheads present, although one could argue that the superior numbers of SHARP present on this paricular occasion would make any dissenting skinhead foolish to voice or act on their dissent. On the other hand, it could also have reflected a high position held by SHARP within the skinhead status hierarchy.

Traditional Skinheads

In 1991, George Marshall published The Spirit of '69: A Skinhead Bible, his own non-academic history of the skinhead subculture. One of his main arguments was that the politicization of the subculture was an unwanted mutation of the original skinheads, who he maintains were "non-political" despite being class-conscious. This stuck a chord with many North American skinheads, and the "traditional" or "trad" skinheads rapidly grew to be one of the dominant subcultural factions. Young and Craig's description of their Oi! skinheads bears many similarities to trad skinheads &endash; their "oxymoronic" mutation of typical skinhead symbols and attire when contrasted with their proclaimed lack of political affiliations; their emphasis on musical tastes and clothing, summing them up as "essentially fashion skinheads." (1997: 179).

Darice describes traditional skinheads in this exchange:

And what are trads?

Well, they sort of cling more to the traditional root of skinhead, so they listen to a lot of the early rocksteady(6) and the early reggae, and, the only thing is that recently trad has taken on this presumption I guess, that they're non-political.

Uh-huh. And what do they mean by that?

Non-political in that they won't take a stance on either side. And, to me that means, non-political, you know, that you don't hold a political party. But to them it means that they won't take a stand for Nazis, they won't take a stand for anti-racists. They'll just sort of walk the line between both and be friends with both.

I guess that even though the traditional skinheads, though I don't relate to them much I still think that they'll go out on the street and they'll take a beating for one reason or another. It might not be to fight Nazis, but it might be to fight Nazis.

Christian noted that, despite their professed non-political stance, most of the traditional skinheads in Montréal were passively anti-racist &endash; unwilling to associate with racist skinheads, but equally unwilling to actively work against them. Edward concurred with this assessment, noting that the trad skins "stand for nothing, but they won't take their (racist skinheads') side."

From the perspective of SHARP members, the traditional skinheads emphasized skinhead fashion more than other factions. Christian was not the only one to comment on how the trad skins were never seen in public wearing anything but Fred Perry polo shirts, Ben Sherman button-down shirts, or Lonsdale sweatshirts &endash; all of which are imported from England by a tiny number of shops specializing in skinhead attire, retailing in Canada at prices of around $80-$100 per garment. This presentation style led Edward to call the traditional skinheads "snobs," contrasting the authenticity of his working-class identity with their wardrobe budgets as justification for this,

Because that's what they're all about. They're all about the fashion, most of the time they're going to spend their money buying Ben Sherman or Fred Perry. Me, I have a couple of Fred Perrys, but I'm not going to spend my whole paycheque on Ben Shermans or nothing like that. I don't care about going out one night with a regular black t-shirt on. I'm still going to look like a skinhead and I'm not going to be like, them, it's always the nice shirts, the nice cardigans and all that.

What do you think about that?

Well, I don't know. I told a couple of friends that are not skinheads, they're not into skinheads at all, and I told them that I thought that skinhead was one of the most snobby styles you can get. Because you can be a regular guy and wear some jeans at forty bucks and a t-shirt at ten bucks and you're still going to look ok. But if you want to look like the traditional skinheads, you need to spend ninety bucks on a Ben Sherman shirt and it looks like a contest with them, to see who's going to wear the nicest one.

A SHARP, it's not like that at all. Because I know that when we have meetings and all that, people are not coming all dressed up really nice. We're all good friends together, so, who cares what anyone is wearing?

But I look at the trads when they're going out, like when there's a ska night at Bar St-Laurent on Wednesdays, it's a nice style but fuck it costs a lot of money!

It is hard to imagine another youth subculture where possession of the proper (and most expensive) clothing coveted by subculture members can actually backfire, calling into question their subcultural authenticity due to a contradiction with class identity. This may be a unique feature of the skinhead subculture.

SHARP members were critical of the traditional skinheads for other reasons as well. Ovide felt that the traditional skinhead faction lacked substance and lampooned their forced attempts at introducing distinctly English elements of the subculture to North America:

They're more into ska stuff, usually. Well, there's not much else, when you look at the '69 skins (7)! (laughter) Just being working and class and ska. And soccer does not apply here, so all the local bands that sing about soccer are just a bunch of losers...(laughter) It doesn't make any sense! It's an adaptation to our culture, people who try to bring the soccer thing here. It'd make more sense to have hockey hooligans than having soccer hooligans.

Darice also criticized the puritanical zeal with which the traditional skinheads seek to reverse the evolution of the skinhead subculture to its' "pure form": "The simple fact is we're not in 1969 and subcultures evolve like anything else. The people who want to keep the "spirit of '69" alive, with one kind of skinhead who, you know, will go out and fight Teddy Boys(8), I mean, give me a break!"

The major point of contention that SHARP members seemed to have with traditional skinheads revolved around the traditional skinheads absolute refusal to voice any opinions on "political" issues. For Ovide, this position contradicts the working-class identity cherished by the subculture.

Totally! Because they're like, "working class, working class." Well, fight for it. Don't vote Tory. (laughter) I think that's what traditional skinhead should be all about. And it makes sense. I don't see people saying, "I'm not in SHARP, I'm a trad." I mean, what the hell? Traditional skinheads could totally be in SHARP, it totally fits with their traditional skinhead values. Totally! Working class, it ain't just white. Nazis are a total enemy of the working class. It makes so much sense to me. For me, being a traditional skinhead is just one more good reason to fight racism.

Darice saw the traditional skinheads' "no politics" position as selfishness &endash; "they don't want to risk themselves, they don't want to suffer any consequences." She further speculated that while some traditional skinheads may secretly agree with SHARP's explicit and active stance against racism within the subculture, they are unwilling to voice this for fear of violating factional norms against taking such a position, and subsequently losing status within the traditional skinhead milieu. Somewhat ominously, she predicts problems for the trad skins because of this:

I think that there is starting to be, and there's going to be even more of a backlash against that.

Against trads?

Yeah, I think so. And of course I'm biased, but I look at them condescendingly, that's for sure, because, like I said, we're fighting for scene where Uyen(9) doesn't have to be concerned if we walk into BSL (10) and she can be assured that there's no fucking bonehead(11) there. And I don't think that the trads really give a shit. And I don't think that furthers the greater good. So I look at them condescendingly because I think that it's shallow and it's very selfish.

I do think that there's going to be a backlash. I think there's starting to be one.

Tension exists between some of the traditional skinheads and the SHARP members of Montréal. Many SHARP members brought up the issue of traditional skinheads saying bad things about SHARP to other members of the subculture, but never directly to a member of SHARP. Darice felt that any existing animosity was,

…mostly on their part. For us, it's starting to be, because you can only hear so much shit that's been said behind your back and read print-outs of internet sites and what's been said on IRC (12) about how SHARPs do this and SHARPs are so bad and whatever, and then you'll go to the bar and they'll be just sweet as pie. But maybe, again, they're concerned for their physical well-being, I don't know.

Edward mentioned that the traditional skinheads complained that SHARP was creating divisions within the skinhead subculture, but that he thought it was "them that's splitting the scene by saying that, because they're all 'oh, we don't like SHARP.' We did nothing wrong against them. And they're like that, right away." By way of illustration, he mentioned a particular traditional skinhead that had harshly criticized SHARP on the internet, and told me of his plans to "kick him out" of the scene: "If he's at the bar this weekend, I'm coming in, I'm not going to go say hello to anybody. I'm going to go straight to him. Right away. Bing, bang, bouff, bye. I'm tired of him."

Edward speculated that the traditional skinheads' complaints regarding SHARP largely stemmed from factional jealousy, based on SHARP's large membership, longevity, and solid relations with the punk subculture in which Montréal's skinhead subculture in Montréal is embedded. "When they saw that SHARP was still here after a year, they were like, 'Wow, they're getting stronger! And us, we're still the people in the corner of the bar, drinking our beer.' And they saw that we have our punk crew and they don't have a punk crew. They have them, and that's all." Edward credited SHARP's good standing with the punk subculture to the group's explicit position against racism:

Well, the thing is, punks, they like to see people standing up against racism. I mean, a bunch of the punks, they have the swastika crossed out on the jackets and stuff. For them, it's cool. But the trads, I mean, they don't see that from the trads, so they won't be like "whooo" about them. But they see that SHARPs are standing up for something, they're like, "Wow, that's cool!

Fencewalkers and Racist Skinheads

Of major concern to members of SHARP is the presence of "fencewalkers" in the Montréal skinhead subculture. Whereas traditional skinheads will not explicitly state their anti-racism, fencewalkers go one step further, befriending both racist and anti-racist skinheads. Often, they bounce back and forth from one camp to another, claiming to be racist skinheads one time and anti-racist skinheads the next. Members of SHARP feel that this creates a threatening situation for anti-racist skinheads, because of the information passed on by fencewalkers to racist skinheads, such as photos of SHARP members, or a SHARP member's home address (which did appear to have occurred in a few instances). One of the Philadelphia skinheads I talked to also took this view of fencewalkers, noting that the larger number of them present in the Philadelphia skinhead scene was a main reason why "it's not so good" there.

For SHARP, racist skinheads occupy the lowest position of the skinhead status hierarchy. Not a single member of SHARP that I spoke with even considered them to be real skinheads, nor would any SHARP refer to racist skinheads as skinheads, preferring to use terms like "boneheads," "Nazis," or "white powers." Darice was adamant that "they've never, ever had a place in my subculture, except as enemies. So, I don't call them skinheads and I don't think of them as skinheads &endash; I think of them as Nazis." For Christian, "boneheads" "are destroying the skinhead name. And their ideology is not acceptable. So that's why we like to fight them." Ovide, calling them a "perversion of our movement," ventured that the association between skinheads and extreme racism occurred because extreme right parties exploited the paramilitary look of skinhead in making appeals to disenfranchised working-class youth. The vacuum of appeals to this population segment by any other political parties became filled with a manufactured racist skinhead subculture, promoting the "hard look" of skinhead. "So, the people who just didn't know what skinhead was all about, and kind of stupid too, kind of were like, 'Wow! This is great!' and kind of got recruited in easily. And once you just add a few bands in there, away you go!"

Symbolic Interaction and Skinhead Factions

One problem Montréal SHARP members encounter occurs when members of the general public mis-read their bricolage and assume that they are neo-Nazis. Most Montréal SHARP members were able to recount incidents in which this occurred. For example, a weekend trip to Boston by several members of the group was marred when they found themselves harassed by residents in a predominantly Black neighbourhood they were walking through, who referred to them as "Nazis," threw stones and threatened to shoot them. Those members of the group that experienced this situation agreed that they were scared and uncertain if stopping to explain who they were would have been a wise or safe choice at the time because of the number of residents involved and because of their unfamiliarity with their immediate surroundings.

This type of situation can also occur with members of the punk subculture. During the evening of a planned action against racist skinheads, several members of the group of punks that joined SHARP seemed extremely confused to be in the presence of anti-racist skinheads. One of the punk women, armed with a video camera, repeatedly began videotaping SHARP members while excitedly calling them Nazis, which the SHARP members tried to first ignore (with some embarrassment!). After several minutes of this, two members of Montréal SHARP finally pulled her aside to explain that they were there to fight Nazis. Later that night, a punk suddenly decided that a SHARP walking alongside him was in fact a Nazi, and began hitting him in the head and calling for his friends to assist. Lily was particularly upset with what transpired that evening, repeating afterwards how "…fucked-up it was. The fucking crusties kept yelling 'Kill the Skinheads! No more Skinheads! And what was with them calling us Nazis? Fuck! It was like for them, any skinhead was a Nazi."

Unlike other youth subcultures, the animosity between some skinhead factions can combine with their propensity for violence. Anti-racist skinheads have been murdered by neo-Nazis in Pennsylvania, Nevada, California and other states, whereas the reverse has been true in Nevada and Oregon. I witnessed several clashes and violent confrontations between Montréal SHARP members and neo-Nazis during my time in the field. How quickly a chance encounter can erode into violence was underscored by the nonchalance of Christian's response to my question about encountering a skinhead not known to him: "Well, mostly, everytime I see a skinhead that I don't know, I make sure I go up to him and ask him who he is and stuff like that. And if he's a bonehead, I just confront him. And if he wants to fight, I don't mind. Just like that."

Because of this potential for violence, it is of crucial importance for skinheads to be able to identify the factional allegiances of other skinheads and to signify their own - a process in which skinheads who encounter each other use whatever information they can glean to define the situation the encounter places them in, letting them know whether or not to expect (or introduce) violence (Goffman, 1956: 1). This relates to the "fundamental dialectic" of all social interaction, according to Goffman (1956: 249) &endash; the desire to know "the facts of the situation" when "one individual enters the prescence of others." (Ibid.). Like all social interaction, SHARP members rely on "cues, tests, hints, expressive gestures, status symbols, etc. &endash; as predictive devices." (Ibid.). This often takes the form of "a feeling-out process…whereby one individual admits his views or statuses to another a little at a time." (Ibid.: 192)

However, discerning the factional allegiance of an unfamiliar skinhead can sometimes be as difficult for the members of Montréal SHARP as for people outside of the skinhead subculture. In the Montréal skinhead subculture, overtly racist or anti-racist patches sewn onto flight jackets often serve as factional signifiers, as do the t-shirts and pins advertising racist or anti-racist or other types of music groups. However, some skinheads choose to conceal their factional allegiances by not displaying any signifiers relating to a specific faction. In SHARP's collective experience, this often appears to be the case with racist skinheads. Christian mentioned that a racist skinhead who attended the same school did not openly display racist signifiers at the school, since "he would be killed" if other schoolmates were made aware of his racist leanings.

This practice of concealment means that the appearance and even behaviour of neo-Nazis can so closely resemble that of members of other skinhead factions that they become difficult to tell apart, even for skinhead subcultural participants. Because of the negative attention SHARP members and other anti-racist skinheads direct towards racist skinheads, racist skinheads attempt to adapt by employing various strategies to conceal their factional allegiance. This is similar to the cicular relationship Kai Erikson descibes between the attention a community pays to deviance and the subsequent deviance and adaptations created by this attention (1966: 20-21). Because of this, several members stated that they would explicitly ask about an unknown skinhead's factional affiliations, were they to encounter another skinhead they did not know who was not displaying signifiers like patches. I asked Darice what she would do if she was in such a situation:

What would you do if you ran into a skinhead that you didn't know, and he wasn't wearing any patches?

Well, I guess I'd ask him where he was from. You know, I'd start friendly and say, "oh, I haven't seen you around, where are you from." Then I'd say, you know, "what are your politics?"

Straight up like that?

Yeah, or, you know, if you're a little more wary, you could say like, "did you see the Streettroopers show?" And if they said, "oh I hate the fucking Streettroopers!" then it'd be like, pretty obvious that they're probably on a different side than you are.

For skinheads then, musical tastes are one signifier with factional connotations that can result in immediate confrontations with members of other skinhead factions.

Occasionally, SHARP members have been able to use homological ambiguity to their advantage. In one instance, three SHARP members went to a death metal concert to look for neo-Nazis. The SHARP members carefully selected clothing that would identify them as skinheads but not as anti-racists. They proceeded to approach other people who looked like skinheads and ask them is they were "white power." This resulted in several neo-Nazis enthusiastically exclaiming in the affirmative, likely assuming that their interrogators were like-minded. At the end of the concert, they joined several other SHARP members at the doors to the venue, where they singled out those they had identified as neo-Nazis earlier in the day for physical assault.

(6)A direct predecessor of reggae.

(7)1969 was considered the peak year of the original wave of skinheads, whom the trads attempt to emulate.

(8)a British youth culture from the late 1950's, that enjoyed a very brief revival in England in the 1970's.

(9)Darice's best friend, who is Vietnamese, and was attacked, along with Darice, by neo-Nazis in a bar 18 months before.

(10)a St-Laurent bar and favourite hangout for SHARP.

(11)a slang term for neo-Nazi skinheads

(12)Internet chat room.