Skinhead group redefines old stereotype

By Gretchen Gier

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

“We stand and fight, back to back. We take no shit, we stay strong, we stick together and we deal with it. We use heads and not our fist unless we’re pushed....as one we’ll fight and win!” — lyrics from the song, “Back to Back,” by Underdog.

Tom Paszkiewicz’s MySpace page is littered with references to scooters, skinheads and the punk scene. His number one friend is listed as the Crusaders Scooter Corp., a page that is an homage to beer drinking, sectarian militancy and scooter riding. Paszkiewicz, member of King City Firm and the Crusaders Scooter Club, describes himself as not a regular civilian type, but a man deeply ingrained in a sub-culture of social outsiders.

Paszkiewicz’s unapologetic attitude is not to be confused with the white-power movement. He’s a non-racial skinhead, a small fraternity of pro-national, anti-society scooter fanatics, who ride vintage Vespas and listen to punk and ska music.

“Skinhead is part of the punk rock scene,” Paszkiewicz said. “It may have taken its name from the English, but it has definitely been influenced by the American punk.”

Mike Benjamin, 2006 graduate and former Lawrence skinhead, said the skinhead movement started with young English boys protecting their neighborhoods and became a backlash to the long-haired hippies of 1960’s America. Neo-Nazis adopted the name and haircut in the 1980s, forcing a rigid distinction between the two groups.

“Anti-racist action was real skinheads who fought against the ‘Nazification’ of the skinhead name,” Paszkiewicz said. “We were anti-racist action and it worked.”

The shared interests and common struggles of skinheads made the small fraternity a tight brotherhood that loathes posers. Monty Maxwell, who attended the University from 2001-2002 and is a member of King City Firm and the Crusader S.C., said the brotherhood bond of skinheads was just short of a blood bond.

“I hold full-on brotherhood to a higher standard than sharing a haircut, “ Maxwell said. “It means my brother’s word is good as gold, and anyone who contradicts or assaults him is affronting me as well.”

Maxwell said that becoming a skinhead didn’t confer some magical honor, but that the brotherhood was important because most skins were social outsiders.

“Many of us grew up with a definite line around us that kept others from getting too close,” Maxwell said. “Whether that was a screwed up home life, combative personality or some other social dysfunction of out own, we learned to recognize others like us.”

Maxwell said the true punk scene was a place for outsiders to belong, or a home for the homeless. He said the skinhead scene was just a flavor of that.

Paszkiewicz points out that a being a skinhead is not a music following or a fashion — it’s a lifestyle. It’s a way of thinking and thus acting, and the music reflects their attitudes and feelings.

“That’s also the attitude of brotherhood,’ Paszkiewicz said. “Us, together as one.”

The magical stage of being a young punk new to the brotherhood doesn’t last forever Maxwell says. The honeymoon period is ended by the drag of scene politics. Circumstances and tiny betrayals accumulate over the years, and you lose sight of the ideal.

“There are skinheads out there that I don’t call my brother. Not on the level of true brotherhood like I call it,” Maxwell said. “But I’m still cool with them. We chat at the bar, laugh on the dance floor, sometimes go to each other’s parties. But it’s a much lower level than what I expect out of a crewmate.”

Benjamin said he was hanging out in the punk rock scene when he learned what the skinhead brotherhood was all about. He joined because he believed in their ideals and identified with the working class mentality of the skins.

“You wouldn’t last long in our crew if you didn’t have a job,” Benjamin said. “The group was working class and made in America, It was pride in Kansas, pride in Lawrence. You didn’t buy your Levi’s if they’re made in Mexico.”

After years on the Lawrence skinhead scene, Benjamin moved away for a job and let his hair grow out. He said that he had hung up his boots, but that he still went to scooter rallies and considered himself a skin.

“When I lived in Lawrence it was one of the top ten places not to go if you were a racial skinhead,” Benjamin said. “If racial skinheads came to Lawrence, we did our best to get them out of town.”

Travis Alderson, former member of the Freestate skins, was also part of the now defunct Lawrence group. He said that he got old and that getting into bar fights weren’t conducive to family life. But he still holds true to skinhead ideals of sticking up for friends and family, not taking crap from anyone, and working class pride.

“We closed down bars, but made sure to be up the next day at seven o’clock to work,” Alderson said.

Paszkiewcz said skinheads were proud to be working class because they didn’t want to be defined by their jobs.

“My job gives me the money I need to support myself and live the life I choose. I won’t keep up with the Joneses,” Paszkiewicz said.

Maxwell, or Max as he refers to himself, is more disillusioned with the notion of working class as a trait that should be heralded by anyone, much less a skinhead.

“Maybe working class means something in England, but I don’t think it translates well to the States,” Max said. I think working class pride was probably a slogan invented by some railroad baron back in the 19th Century to make his wage slaves and indentured servants feel better about having shitty pay, poor health care and miserable living conditions. But it’s sort of a fetish in the skinhead scene.”

The range of opinions on official skinhead ideology varies slightly from each person and club, as much as the colorful stripes and details vary from each scooter.

The common bond between brothers is universal; riding scooter is f-u-n with a capital F-U.

“I’ll be with my true brothers, messing with my scooter, dancing to reggae, drinking stout beer and chasing skirts until I die,” Max said.

— Edited by Rustin Dodd

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