Logo featuring a Corinthian helmet, commonly used by those associated with SHARP
Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP) are anti-racistskinheads 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,[1] who they sometimes deride as "boneheads".[2]
SHARP professes no political ideology or affiliation beyond the common opposition to racism. The group stresses the importance of the black Jamaican influence in the original late-1960s skinhead movement, much akin to Trojan skinheads.
Boneheads (nazi skinheads) and other white supremacists have used this symbol, along with many other hate symbols, in opposition to SHARP.
Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice was founded in 1987 by Marcus, a skinhead from New York City.[11][1] It emerged as a response by suburban adolescents to the bigotry of the growing White Power Movement in 1982. Traditional skinheads (Trads) formed as a way to show that the skinhead subculture was not based on racism and political extremism.[12] NYC Oi! band The Press and Jason O'Toole (vocalist of the hardcore punk group Life's Blood) were among SHARP's early supporters. In 1989, Roddy Moreno of the Welsh Oi! band The Oppressed visited New York City and met a few SHARP members. On his return to the United Kingdom, he designed a new SHARP logo based on the Trojan Reggae labels design and started promoting SHARP ideals to British skinheads.
SHARP then spread throughout Europe and in other continents.[13] In the UK and other European countries, the SHARP attitude was more based on the individual than on organized groups. In the 2000s, SHARP is thought to have become more of an individual designation than an official organization.
Skinheads, especially in the United States and ASEAN Countries likes Malaysia, Singapore & Indonesia align themselves with groups and organizations to this day. Most of these would designate themselves as crews.[14] Many strive for an individualist presentation with collectivist goals. As well they are generally imposed into community service, protesting, activism both violent and peaceful. SHARPs often take part of local mutual aid or activist groups such as Black Lives Matter or Anti-Racist Action, in which the latter was even in part founded by skinheads, the most well known of which being Mic Crenshaw.
The Baldies Syndicate Logo, 1989.
The United States SHARPs scene has been entirely agitated by the racist overture and have resorted to all forms of anti-racism and anti-fascism to redeem their style and culture.
Violence has been rampant within either of the Skinhead factions for decades now. Between fighting in Clubs and Venues as well as the streets, from mosh pit shuffles to murder.[15][16] The American scene has been alive and vibrant since the 80's. Some of the most well known Anti-Racist Skinhead crews include The Baldies Syndicate[17] and American S.H.A.R.P (Colloquially known as A.M.S). Additional groups maintain active membership globally.
Many people may confuse SHARP members with racists, since their appearance is superficially similar: shaved heads, denim, lace up boots, button-down shirts and suspenders (called braces). One glib differentiation that might be imagined to separate the two would be music interests. SHARPs may listen to culturally influenced music such as: soul, reggae, and ska; but also punk, hardcore and Oi!. Racist skinheads would disagree with some or all of these musical choices; but may listen to punk, hardcore, Oi!, as well as Nazi punk and National Socialist black metal.
In a deliberate attempt to reject the growing racist subculture, since the early eighties SHARPs promulgated an anti-racist identity through small amateur fanzine publications like Hard As Nails. During the pre-Internet era, these publication established a network of likeminded individuals with similar musical and stylistic attitudes, who considered anti-racism an indispensable part of a living skinhead scene. Another strand of the same Trad revival sought to affirm explicit links with the foundation of Mod subculture and its apolitical, black-positive standards of fashion. The scooter scene, with its runs and Northern Soul dances, had never gone entirely away; and in the post-punk rediscovery of the past, under the influence of The Jam and Quadrophenia, it seemed a fresh and self-renewing direction for skinhead itself to go in.
By 1989, this Trad scene was ripe for the injection of a cultural influence like SHARP, much as its own appearance had been symptomatic of an American internal revolution in US skinheads' attitudes to race and their own subculture.
An outgrowth of SHARP, Red and Anarchist Skinheads (RASH), formed in the United States in 1993 against anti-gay sentiment in the nonracist skinhead community.[18]
Image
Original logo of SHARP.
The original logo was an American flag surrounded by the SHARP lettering. The second SHARP logo is based on the logo of Trojan Records, which originally mainly released black Jamaicanska, rocksteady, and reggae artists. Some variants of this design also incorporate the checkerboard motif of 2 Tone Records, known for its multiracial roster of ska- and reggae-influenced bands.[19]
The way in which SHARPs dress is to project an image that looks hard and smart, in an evolving continuity with style ideals established in the middle-to-late 1960s. This style and demeanour originated from the UK, growing out of the pre-existing mod movement, taking cues and influences from Jamaican ska and rude boy culture. They remain true to the style's original purpose of enjoying life, clothes, attitude and music.
The punk subculture includes a diverse and widely known array of ideologies, fashion, and other forms of expression, visual art, dance, literature, and film. Largely characterised by anti-establishment views, the promotion of individual freedom, and the DIY ethics, the culture originated from punk rock.
Ska is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the off beat. It was developed in Jamaica in the 1960s when Stranger Cole, Prince Buster, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd, and Duke Reid formed sound systems to play American rhythm and blues and then began recording their own songs. In the early 1960s, ska was the dominant music genre of Jamaica and was popular with British mods and with many skinheads.
A skinhead or skin is a member of a subculture that originated among working-class youths in England, in the 1960s. It soon spread to other parts of the United Kingdom, with a second working-class skinhead movement emerging worldwide in the late 1970s. Motivated by social alienation and working-class solidarity, skinheads are defined by their close-cropped or shaven heads and working-class clothing such as Dr. Martens and steel toe work boots, braces, high rise and varying length straight-leg jeans, and button-down collar shirts, usually slim fitting in check or plain. The movement reached a peak at the end of the 1960s, experienced a revival in the 1980s, and, since then, has endured in multiple contexts worldwide.
Punk fashion is the clothing, hairstyles, cosmetics, jewellery, and body modifications of the punk counterculture. Punk fashion varies widely, ranging from Vivienne Westwood designs to styles modeled on bands like The Exploited to the dressed-down look of North American hardcore. The distinct social dress of other subcultures and art movements, including glam rock, skinheads, greasers, and mods have influenced punk fashion. Punk fashion has likewise influenced the styles of these groups, as well as those of popular culture. Many punks use clothing as a way of making a statement.
Two-tone or 2 tone, also known as ska-rock and ska revival, is a genre of British popular music of the late 1970s and early 1980s that fused traditional Jamaican ska, rocksteady, and reggae music with elements of punk rock and new wave music. Its name derives from 2 Tone Records, a record label founded in 1979 by Jerry Dammers of the Specials, and references a desire to transcend and defuse racial tensions in Thatcher-era Britain: many two-tone groups, such as the Specials, the Selecter and the Beat, featured a mix of black, white, and multiracial people.
Rude boy is a subculture that originated from 1960s Jamaican street culture. In the late 1970s, there was a revival in England of the terms rude boy and rude girl, among other variations like rudeboy and rudebwoy, being used to describe fans of two-tone and ska. This revival of the subculture and term was partially the result of Jamaican immigration to the UK and the so-called ”Windrush” generation. The use of these terms moved into the more contemporary ska punk movement as well. In the UK and especially Jamaica, the terms rude boy and rude girl are used in a way similar to gangsta, yardie, or badman.
Rock Against Communism (RAC) was the name of white power rock concerts in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and has since become the catch-all term for music with racist lyrics as well as a specific genre of rock music derived from Oi!. The lyrics can focus on racism and antisemitism, though this depends on the band.
Anti-Racist Action (ARA), also known as the Anti-Racist Action Network, is a decentralized network of militant far-left political cells in the United States and Canada. The ARA network originated in the late 1980s to engage in direct action and doxxing against rival political organizations on the hard right to dissuade them from further involvement in political activities. Anti-Racist Action described such groups as racist or fascist, or both. Most ARA members have been anarchists, but some have been Trotskyists and Maoists.
Punk ideologies are a group of varied social and political beliefs associated with the punk subculture and punk rock. It is primarily concerned with concepts such as mutual aid, against selling out, hierarchy, white supremacy, authoritarianism, eugenics, class and classism, while supporting anti-consumerism, anti-corporatism, anti-war, anti-imperialism, leftism, anti-globalization, anti-gentrification, anti-racism, anti-sexism, gender equality, anti-homophobia, racial equality, animal rights, free-thought and non-conformity. One of its main tenets is a rejection of mainstream, corporate mass culture and its values. It continues to evolve its ideology as the movement spreads throughout North America from its origins in England and New York and embraces a range of anti-racist and anti-sexist belief systems. Punk does not necessarily lend itself to any particular political ideology as it is primarily anti-establishment although leftist punk is more common due to the prevalence of liberal and conservative ideologies in the status-quo.
The 20th century saw the rise and fall of many subcultures.
Trojan Records is a British record label founded by Jamaican Duke Reid in 1968. It specialises in ska, rocksteady, reggae and dub music. The label currently operates under the Sanctuary Records Group. The name Trojan comes from the Croydon-built Trojan truck that was used as Duke Reid's sound system in Jamaica. The truck had "Duke Reid - The Trojan King of Sounds" painted on the sides, and the music played by Reid became known as the Trojan Sound.
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.
People from the Caribbean have made significant contributions to British Black music for many generations.
Skanking is a form of dancing practiced in the ska, ska punk, hardcore punk, reggae, drum and bass and other music scenes.
Trojan skinheads are individuals who identify with the original British skinhead subculture of the middle 1960s, when ska, rocksteady, reggae, and soul music were popular, and there was a heavy emphasis on mod-influenced clothing styles. Named after the record label Trojan Records, these skinheads identify with the subculture's Jamaican rude boy and British working class roots.
The history of the punk subculture involves the history of punk rock, the history of various punk ideologies, punk fashion, punk visual art, punk literature, dance, and punk film. Since emerging in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia in the mid-1970s, the punk subculture has spread around the globe and evolved into a number of different forms. The history of punk plays an important part in the history of subcultures in the 20th century.
Oi! is a subgenre of punk rock that originated in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s. The music and its associated subculture had the goal of bringing together punks, skinheads, and other disaffected working-class youth. The movement was partly a response to the perception that many participants in the early punk rock scene were, in the words of The Business guitarist Steve Kent, "trendy university people using long words, trying to be artistic... and losing touch."
A number of overlapping punk rock subgenres have developed since the emergence of punk rock in the mid-1970s. Even though punk genres at times are difficult to segregate, they usually show differing characteristics in overall structures, instrumental and vocal styles, and tempo. However, sometimes a particular trait is common in several genres, and thus punk genres are normally grouped by a combination of traits.
Hardcore skinheads are skinheads who mainly associate with hardcore and sometimes heavy metal instead of Oi!, ska, soul or other music genres associated with the skinhead subculture.
White power music is music that promotes white nationalism. It encompasses various music styles, including rock, country, and folk. Ethnomusicologist Benjamin R. Teitelbaum argues that white power music "can be defined by lyrics that demonize variously conceived non-whites and advocate racial pride and solidarity. Most often, however, insiders conceptualized white power music as the combination of those themes with pounding rhythms and a charging punk or metal-based accompaniment." Genres include Nazi punk, Rock Against Communism, National Socialist black metal, and fashwave.
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