Trivia: Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP) are anti-racist skinheads who oppose neo-Nazis and other political racists, especially if those racists call themselves skinheads. They recognize the multiracial origins of the skinhead subculture and resent what they see as the hijacking of the skinhead name by racial extremists. SHARP was started in New York City, in 1987, as a way to show that the skinhead subculture is not based on racism and political extremism. Jason O'Toole, the vocalist for hardcore punk group Life's Blood, was among its early supporters. In 1989, Roddy Moreno (of the Welsh Oi! band The Oppressed) visited New York and met many SHARPs. On his return to the UK, he started promoting SHARP ideals to British skinheads. It then quickly spread to Germany and throughout Europe. Now there are SHARP skinheads around the world, although it's more of an individual designation than an official organization or political movement. SHARP was born in New York in 1987, when mass media rumours and right-wing infiltrations had ruined the orginal skin cult spreading out the image of the bonehead- the nazi 'skinhead'. Some skins, fed up with this situation, gave life to SHARP (SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice) under the slogan 'pride without prejudice' to diffuse a different message, that skins are not all the same and that every skinhead has got his own ideas on politics as on every other thing: being a skinhead is a style and a cultural choice, not a political one. The first members of SHARP did a good job being interviewed on the radio and on TV, diffusing stuff to explain our multiracial, and multicultural roots. All these things happened over ten years ago, since then many SHARP chapters disappeared and new ones were born and they still keep on coming, and every single chapter is the reflection of its own town's and country's reality, often with deep differences expecially on the political side, something that largely contributed to make SHARP members forget what this movement was born for: SHARP's purpose was to fight fascists, belonging to SHARP doesn't mean that you are non-political, anarchist or communist, it just means that you're an anti-racist skinhead with your own ideas, proud of your roots and not willing to be nobody's puppet. Now, have we attained our objectives? First of all today a lot of people know that 'skinhead' doesn't stand for 'racist', and this is something more than a small advantage for our everyday life, this is an important goal in the fight against fascism: nothwithstanding the bad information and all the media publicity nazis are aware that they have lost almost a part of an important recruitment tool; beside that, lots of section gave an important contribution to the scene, creating new oi! and ska bands and publishing new fanzines, diffusin both our anti-racist message and our culture, taking it back to its roots and not living it as a political instrument or as a wing of punk... SHARP is officially non-political, but some SHARPs have similar beliefs to political anti-fascist skins like Redskins and Anarcho-skinheads. Due to their anti-racist ideals, some SHARPs have been involved with groups such as Anti-Fascist Action. However, this is more based on personal beliefs, as opposed to views associated directly with SHARP.
Nazi punks fuck off! Oi! !
