Racist Skinhead Subculture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Racist Skinhead Subculture - Essay Example The racial skinhead subculture is similar to neo-Nazi ideologies in the sense that aggression is mainly targeted to certain racial groups. In this case scenario, the most hated are often Jews, since the skinheads view them as the ones who have taken all the economic privileges in the country. They also abhor blacks and other races, whom they consider as inferior races to the white race. Over the past three decades, the racist skinhead subculture has continually evolved to be more sophisticated in the way it uses the internet to spread its propaganda. Though various extremist skinhead activities were weakened after 9/11 attacks in the US due to another of issues such as arrest of some leaders and death of another (Sinderbrand, 2004:38), since 2004, and over the past five years most of the groups have been regrouping, getting integrated and increasingly carrying out race motivated attacks on people (Anti Defamation League, 2012a:1). Since such groups often surge during times of economic distress and seek to put blames on various racial groups for taking away all jobs in the economy, I contend that it is probably due to the recent economic recession that most of these racist skinheads have regrouped. It is due to this reason that this paper finds it important to study the intricacies of the brand community of the skinhead subculture, and specifically the racist skinhea ds.... It is due to this reason that this paper finds it important to study the intricacies of the brand community of the skinhead subculture, and specifically the racist skinheads. The study will use subculture theory to understand why the skinhead group is a subculture and to tease out specific elements and themes concerning a specific example of racist skinhead: Hammerskin Nation. It will also analyze empirical studies as to attributes of this group in order to understand their practice. To this end, the key research questions will be what the main characteristics of the brand Hammerskin Nation are, why they have these characteristics and why they are a subculture based on clear themes concerning their movements that have been teased out and highlighted theoretical attributes. Literature review Historical perspective of the racial Skinhead The start of the skinhead head movement can be traced in the UK back in the 1950s and the 1960s. During this time several young people defined themsel ves separately by adopting a high stylish lifestyle bordered on mainly styles adopted by the British rock bands, US R$B, as well as movie stars. Brown (2004: 175) observes these earlier young people known as mods, who were less inclined to violence, became known for their devotion to music, fashion, scooters and their general consumerism. Since not all of the fashion trendy adhering to mod subculture could afford to have the latest trends in fashion, the group split off into two, the well off referred to as the smooth mods and the working class mods who could less afford the fashion trends. Nordstrom and Robben (1995:87) show that due to this the hard mods preferred to be sported in suspenders, boots and straight legged jeans. The hard mods mainly enjoyed he hard rock,