Redskin (subculture)

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Anarchist, anti-fascist and anti-racist skinheads in Hannover, Germany 1. Mai 2013 in Hannover. Gute Arbeit. Sichere Rente. Soziales Europa. Umzug vom Freizeitheim Linden zum Klagesmarkt. Menschen und Aktivitaten (111).jpg
Anarchist, anti-fascist and anti-racist skinheads in Hannover, Germany

In the context of the skinhead subculture, a redskin is a Marxist skinhead, who often also subscribe to anarchist views. The term combines the word red, (a slang term for socialist or communist) with the word skin, which is short for skinhead. Redskins take a militant anti-fascist and pro-working class stance.

The most well-known organization associated with redskins is Red and Anarchist Skinheads (RASH). Other groups that have had redskin members include Anti-Fascist Action, Red Action and Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (although SHARP does not have an official ideology). Bands associated with redskins include: The Redskins, Angelic Upstarts, Blaggers I.T.A., Kortatu, Skalariak, Banda Bassotti, The Burial, Negu Gorriak, Opció K-95, Los Fastidios, Kaos Urbano, Brigada Flores Magón, Núcleo Terco, Permanent Revolution and The Press. One record label associated with the subculture is Insurgence Records.

History

In the late 1970s and '80s, the skinhead subculture underwent a revival in western Europe. The origins of the skinhead subculture were largely apolitical, with working class youths in 1960's London who were influenced by similar working-class subcultures, like the mods and the Jamaican rude boys. In later decades, a new generation of skinheads came out of the punk subculture, emerging with a distinct style of music and dress. At this time, the skinhead subculture was made up overwhelmingly of working-class white men, and with the emergence of far-right political parties, such as the French Front National and the British National Front, around the same time, many skinheads adopted far-right and white supremacist views. In the coming decades, these white power skinheads became widely known for racial hate crimes, to the point where popular media began to associate the entire skinhead subculture with racial violence. [1]

In response to this, skinheads who held radical left-wing views, as well as skinheads who were members of minority groups who were being targeted by white supremacists, began forming organized opposition to white power skinheads, and the bands and political parties they supported. One such group was the Red Warriors, a youth gang of far-left skinheads who would physically confront white power skinheads in the streets, which often ended in violence. [2] The Red Warriors often acted as security for punk shows and left-wing activist groups, such as SCALP and SOS Racisme, who were often targeted with violence by white power skinheads. Over time, the Red Warriors, and other youth gangs with similar goals, became well-known in France for their confrontational and violent methods for resisting fascists. [3] These "skinhead hunters" would later influence similar groups of far-left skinheads and anti-fascist groups, in France and around the world. [4]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice</span> Group of skinheads opposing racism

Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP) are anti-racist skinheads who oppose white power skinheads, neo-fascists and other political racists, particularly if they identify themselves as skinheads. SHARPs claim to reclaim the original multicultural identity of the original skinheads, hijacked by white power skinheads, who they sometimes deride as "boneheads".

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Squadism was the practice of physical, anti-fascist direct action. The term, often used pejoratively by liberal anti-fascists eschewing violence, originated in the Anti-Nazi League, an anti-fascist campaigning organisation dominated by the heterodox Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party (SWP). The SWP formed "squads", fighting units, in 1977, initially to defend and steward meetings against violent attacks from the fascist National Front. However, other anti-fascist squads emerged separately from the SWP, such as the Sari Squad.

White power skinheads, also known as racist skinheads and neo-Nazi skinheads, are members of a neo-Nazi, white supremacist and antisemitic offshoot of the skinhead subculture. Many of them are affiliated with white nationalist organizations and some of them are members of prison gangs. The movement emerged in the United Kingdom between the late 1960s and the late 1970s, before spreading across Eurasia and North America in the 1980–1990s.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anti-fascism</span> Opposition to fascism

Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were opposed by many countries forming the Allies of World War II and dozens of resistance movements worldwide. Anti-fascism has been an element of movements across the political spectrum and holding many different political positions such as anarchism, communism, pacifism, republicanism, social democracy, socialism and syndicalism as well as centrist, conservative, liberal and nationalist viewpoints.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Redneck Revolt</span> American far-left political group

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It's Going Down (IGD) is a media collective publishing news, analysis, and commentary from an anarchist perspective. The collective covers autonomous anti-capitalist, anti-colonial, and anti-fascist movements across North America. It is known for producing investigative work on far-right, white nationalist, and neo-Nazi networks, as well as reports on contemporary social struggles and movements.

References

  1. https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=14885%5B%5D
  2. Bray, Mark (2017). Antifa: the Antifascist Handbook. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House Publishing. pp. 50–51. ISBN   978-1-61219-703-6.
  3. "ANTIFA - Chasseurs de Skins". Resistance Films. 2008.
  4. Vysotsky, Stanislav (November 2013). "The influence of threat on tactical choices of militant anti-fascist activists". pp. 263–294.