Boots, bomber jacket and cropped hair do pose the odd question or two. But only because the word „skinhead“ has such negative connotations. Only the very few realise that the skinhead lifestyle is about having a good time, although there is an element of rebellion against middle class cant and respectability.

In clubs, on the streets or in the fitness centre time and time again misunderstandings arise. People are too quick to associate the outward appearance of a skinhead with right wing violence and xenophobia. And it is precisely that attitude which Oi Skins (the followers of the original sixties British skinhead cult) are fighting against! That’s why it’s important to wear the gear which you love and adore.

If skinheads act as a source of provocation when out in public, that is a good thing – because it makes people talk to each other. You often get questions like „eh, are you trying to try to say something wearing those boots?“ Of course I’m trying to say something. Unfortunately that’s always taken the wrong way. Everybody always thinks that steel toe capped boots (Rangers, Undergrounds, Boots and Braces) are an expression of right wing views. Rubbish! It’s about a nothing more than a lifestyle choice – wearing the gear you feel the bulldog’s bollocks. Incidentally, heavy lace up boots were originally worn in Britain because of the „loud crunch“ they made as you walked down the streets. „Stomping“ they called it.

Perhaps skinheads like giving provocation because it’s a way of starting up a conversation with other people. Any discussion is a contribution to removing negative prejudice and combating the view which almost always associates the word „skinhead“ with racist thugs or far right views.

However, drawing the opposite conclusion can also be dangerous. „Those who look like skins“ can of course also be racist and violent. The fact of the matter is: you can’t tell by looking what a person is like. You can’t judge a book by its covers.

This website wants to help promote the view that a skinhead wearing a bomber jacket and boots should not be tarred with same brush. And it is the express intention and wish of this homepage to „provoke“ skinheads who are used as political cannon fodder by the NPD (Translators note: a right wing German nationalist political party). You are not true skinheads, because you haven’t got a clue what this movement is all about!

Nevertheless, the author of this homepage is obliged to concede that deep down even Nazi skins have got something of the original skinhead faith in them and therefore have got what it takes to be a skin. The author of this text has wondered for years whether lots of skinheads (especially the young ones from the former East Germany) are only extreme right wing, because they so much want to be skins.

Perhaps this homepage will help some of them to understand: Nobody has to be far right to be a skinhead. Which does not mean that you have to tolerate each and every foreigner. Of course you can take objections to foreigners... just as long as you don’t dis them simply because they’re foreigners! There’s nothing wrong with calling a Turk „a wanker“, if he behaves in a violent or outrageous manner. One’s reaction to a German who behaved like that would be exactly the same. And don’t let’s mince words about this: Is it not mainly foreigners who attack skinheads? Often without any justification – foreigners too have got some lessons to learn.