Word: skinheads
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Dates: during 1970-1970
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...street. The mellow lamplight and the shadow of the trees combined to form a second dusk, in which the sounds of nearing footsteps and the noise of an approaching car brought only mild curiosity, not apprehension. Yes, you are right: London is a civilized city. It has strikes, demonstrations, skinhead forays against hippies, and racial troubles with its West Indians, Africans and Pakistanis. But compared to America's big cities, it is profoundly at peace...
Maybe not, But in the year since the skinheads first appeared, many hundreds of serious injuies have beens blamed on skinhead romps. Jack Weeds, a train engineer jumped by a skinhead pack. described the experience: "I got boots in the back, in the guts, on the head, everywhere. I tried covering my head with my hands, then they kicked my hands. These kids were actually skipping around with excitement." In November, a gang 20 strong invaded a suburban party in Surrey, tore down a garden wall, wrecked furniture and sent eight guests to the hospital. Soccer games bring skinheads flocking...
...Guys. "You've got to be in a crew or there's nothing for you to do," a skinhead explains. "If you're out, you're a loner, and in bovver no one will help you." Admits one: "I don't say any of us are nice guys. We want to be 'tasty'-y'know, big guys." Most if not all the skinheads are working-class boys from 15 to 18, stuck in low-paying manual-labor jobs and reflecting the crudest prejudices of their blue-collar parents. Few have read...
Beyond bovver, pleasures are simple: beer, a very occasional whiff of pot and dancing in seedy clubs to the solid, punchy beat of West Indian blues. Skinheads don't bovver with the West Indians, probably because they are tough. Pakistanis are a favorite target because they seem passive, weak and, above all, different. "They smell, don't they?" says the son of a London docker. "It's all that garlic. I mean, they've no right to be here." One skinhead described the "Paki-bashing" technique to a British television interviewer: "You go up to them...
Last week more than 2,000 Pakistanis marched on No. 10 Downing Street to protest skinhead attacks, which have numbered more than 50 in recent weeks. If the skinhead problem worsens, some British voters, increasingly sensitive to law and order, may pay closer heed to the Conservative Party's emphasis on the issue and vote Tory in the forthcoming national elections. On a few occasions, police have confiscated bootlaces and braces from skinhead packs, on the theory that it is difficult to kick a victim if one's boots are flopping and one's trousers are dropping...