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Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice

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Logo commonly used by those associated with SHARP

Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP) are anti-racist skinheads who oppose neo-fascists and other political racists, particularly if those racists identify themselves as skinheads. SHARPs draw inspiration from the biracial origins of the skinhead subculture, and resent what they see as the hijacking of the "skinhead" name by white power skinheads (sometimes deriding them as "boneheads"). Beyond the opposition to racism, there is no official SHARP political ideology.

The SHARP logo is based on the logo of Trojan Records, which originally mainly released black Jamaican ska, 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.

The way in which SHARPs, or skinheads against racial prejudice, 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-existent 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. This does not include blanket hatred of other people based on their skin colour.

History

The original skinhead subculture started in the United Kingdom in late 1960s, and had heavy British mod and Jamaican rude boy influences, including a love for ska and soul music.[1][2][3][4] Although some skinheads (including black skinheads) had engaged in "Paki bashing" (random violence against Pakistanis and other South Asian immigrants), skinheads were not associated with an organized racist political movement in the 1960s.[5][6][7] This was simply because Britain was at the time a culturally racist society. However, in the late 1970s, a skinhead revival in the UK included a sizable white nationalist faction, involving organizations such as the National Front, British Movement, Rock Against Communism and in the late eighties Blood and Honour. Because of this, the mainstream media began to label the whole skinhead identity as neo-fascist. This new white power skinhead movement then spread to other countries, including the United States.

Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice was started in 1987 in New York 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.[8] André Schlesinger (and his 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.[9][10] SHARP then spread throughout Europe and in other continents.[11] 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.

Racist skinheads and other white supremacists have used this symbol, along with many other hate symbols, in opposition to SHARP. [12]

Many people may confuse SHARPs 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!. Racists who dress like Skinheads (but are not, as you can't be both) would disagree with some or all of these musical choices; but might very well listen to Punk, Hardcore and Oi!, too; as well as the distinct but often-confused genres of Nazi Punk and Black Metal.

Skinheads can be very complex in their fashion taste and groupings. In a deliberate attempt to reject the growing racist subculture and re-connect with the style cult's early origins, a number of skinheads, beginning around 1982/1983, re-asserted that identity through small amateur fanzine publications like Hard As Nails. These established, in a pre-Internet era, a network of likeminded individuals with the same attitudes to music and style, who considered anti-racism an indispensable part of a living skinhead scene. Another strand of the same Trad revival sought to re-establish explicit links with the Mod subculture and its apolitical, Black-positive and sartorial standards. 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 1993 against anti-gay sentiment in the nonracist, but still as-yet unenlightened skinhead community.[13]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ Brown, Timothy S. (2004). "Subcultures, pop music and politics: skinheads and "Nazi rock" in England and Germany". Journal of Social History.
  2. ^ Old Skool Jim. Trojan Skinhead Reggae Box Set liner notes. London: Trojan Records. TJETD169.
  3. ^ Marshall, George (1991). Spirit of '69 - A Skinhead Bible. Dunoon, Scotland: S.T. Publishing. ISBN 1-898927-10-3.
  4. ^ Special Articles
  5. ^ Marshall, George. Skinhead Nation. ST Publishing, 1996. ISBN 1-898927-45-6, ISBN 978-1-898927-45-7.
  6. ^ Monty Montgomery of the Pyramids/Symarip interview
  7. ^ "Britain: The Skinheads". Time. 1970-06-08. Retrieved 2010-05-23.
  8. ^ Skinhead Nation, chapter: The Big Apple Bites Back (archived)
  9. ^ The Oppressed; Official Website
  10. ^ BBC - Wales - The Oppressed
  11. ^ SHARP skinheads Archived 2007-07-09 at the Wayback Machine
  12. ^ "Hate on Display: Anti-SHARP Imagery". Anti-Defamation League. Retrieved 17 December 2016.
  13. ^ Bronner, Simon J.; Clark, Cindy Dell (2016). Youth Cultures in America [2 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. p. 622. ISBN 978-1-4408-3392-2.
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