[The Germanator]

Originally Posted by GameMaster

Yeah, I always associated 'skinhead' with the hateful group Strangler describes, as do most people. This new breed of punk needs to find a different name because 'skinhead' is already taken.

Actually, you are incorrect. The punks had the moniker first, the racists just decided that they liked it. Here is a quote and an article about it.

In Britain in the late 1960s there existed a youth sub-culture known as Mods. A lot of the tough Mods began to cut their hair close to the scalp, both as a fashion statement and due to the fact that it kept their hair out of their faces and made it impossible to grab during a fight.

These kids were also a major part of football hooliganism, which is an unfortunate tradition that still exists in Britain today. Each week fans donned the colours of their team and rooted and cheered until their faces turned blue. They also consumed a tremendous amount of alcohol. The highlight of every match was the brawl. The fights often would pour out into the streets and would involve chains, boots, fists, and anything else they could get their hands on. To relax, these same thugs would dress in the best threads that their blue-collar pay cheques could get them, and go and dance, party, and drink all night with the relatively large Jamaican immigrant population and the music they brought with them - ska.

So, at the beginning, skinheads were not racist.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A427213