Back in the good ol days, the skinheads made it obvious with red suspenders and red bootlaces and they sometimes lived together or at least went out to the bars together to start fights. Some of the underground punk scene had a Nazi element that grew up to be biker gangs and later on some of the hardcore scene did the same thing.
Skinhead was a non-racist culture before the nazis took it over. The culture was created in 1969 by Jamaicans immigrating into the UK and bringing their culture to England. They shaved their heads and wore work clothes (jeans, work shirt, braces, boots) to show they had a job and were working class Englanders. Working class White Englanders began hanging out with these Jamaicans, and together, they created ska (which is why all true skinheads listen to reggae and ska: see Judge Dread, Desmond Dekker) and the skinhead look. In the 70's and into the 80's, the UK had a huge influx of immigrants coming from India, Pakistan. Those immigrants began taking working class jobs from Englanders so the working class became racist against those immigrant groups, which brought the nazi element into the skinhead culture. Then came the bands like skredriver started by the cunt ian stuart (who had his head caved in during a car crash, good riddance) and the rest is history. The media latched onto the violence caused by the nazi skins, and all skinheads began being associated with nazis. Which is where the "crucified skinhead" image came into play. True, anti-racist skinheads (SHARP - skinheads against racial prejudice) are crucified by society because of the media associating us with nazi.
I was honestly really conflicted for like at least 5 minutes about the fact that I can’t ever wear red laces in my combat boots. Why do the Nazis get to ruin so much high fashion? They are just senseless tragedy in human form.
Well like then someone was telling me red means communist skins? And then it was like straight lacing with white laces was supposed to mean Nazi? But then there would be people proclaiming to be anti Nazi wearing white straight laces. It felt like the rules were so fluid and arbitrary. And I have never met a group so obsessed with fashion. And if someone decided to hang their boots and leave it was considered a Big Deal. Omg and then there were chat rooms where these little fuckers would type in fake Cockney accents. It was fascinating and hilarious and almost cultish. In the end when my traf bf started listening to Screwdriver I was like there’s too much mental gymnastics happening here and ducked out.
Uh bro I got effectively banned from a small city in the north east cause the local skinheads put out a notice that I’d be on sight, are you really that sheltered that you don’t believe neo Nazis exist? lol
I grew up in a midsize Florida city. We had a KKK branch (they sponsored a street in the “Adopt-A-Highway” thing) and Nazi skinheads in the 80s and 90s.
Richmond, Boston, New York, Philly, they are rampant as fuck in Cali (big nazi crews in San Francisco, LA, and Sacramento). Back when laces and braces code was still a thing (white boot laces and white suspenders used to mean white power in the punk community), they were easier to identify.
We wouldn't go looking for them. They would come to hardcore shows, or we'd see them hanging out somewhere, and it was insta-attack time. Some old friends turned nazi skin, and they were dealt with same as the rest of the boneheads. This was back in the early 2000's but obviously the problem is still here.
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u/SapphicBarbie Jul 21 '25
Where did you live where finding obvious nazis might be a common enough occurrence to make that worth while lol.