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The Latest Ih Fascism:
Part 1 of a 2-part Series
The most serious incident police had to deal
with during the recent Democratic National
Convention and its attendant protests occurred
when Skinheads tried to face down anti-Klan
and supremacist protesters.
On Sunday, just prior to the LEGAL Rally,
two Skinheads marched down Marietta Street
with banners to protest the cancelation of a
scheduled white supremacist rally. As they tried
to enter the Free Speech area, their way was
blocked by anti-supremacist protesters. Police
quickly surrounded the two Skins, separating
them from the increasingly hostile crowd and
moved them slowly out of the area.
Wearing a T-shirt with a logo from the
NAAWP (The National Association for the
Advancement of WHITE People) with his
traditional Skinhead "look" of shaved head,
combat fadgues and heavy black boots, Michael
John Palach defensively gripped his white shield
with lightning bolt insignia as he talked with
reporters. Skinheads, he claimed, are
misunderstood and persecuted.
"I've not attacked anyone," he insisted.
"Where are white people's rights? We had over
200 people ready to march but a judge revoked
out permit...We weren't even allowed to march
down the street. This is America."
According to most observers, this was the
most tense moment of the convention, produced
by animosity between the Skinheads and other
protest groups. Why have the Skinheads
emerged as a public safely problem for the city
of Atlanta? Are they simply the misunderstood
kids they claim to be?
Not by a long shot, say those who have
observed them closely. While some of their
hangers-on - those who adopt the shaved and
booted look for its fashionably rebellious appeal
- are simply sporting a style, a number of others,
like those who marched at the convention, are
being lured into a violent right-wing ideology as
well.
Though Skins are a right-wing ideological
outcropping of the Punk movement, Punks and
Skins have long since disavowed each other.
The two movements both originated in Britain
among working class youth concerned with
recent economic and social trends. While the
Punks, for the most part, have stopped short of
"We fight for the
betterment of our society
and the white race. We
will stop at nothing to
achieve our goals..."
destructive or genuinely anti-social action, and
tend to list to the left politically - when they list
politically at all - Skins have actively embraced
violence and fused it with a neo-Nazi ideology
that has many older right-wing groups like the
Ku Klux Klan embracing them as the avant
garde of the right. Because of their appeal to the
young, members of the radical right see the
Skins as a fertile recruiting tool for an aging
movement.
Also unlike the majority of Klan members,
Skins are very young, usually teens and young
adults in their 20s, and they bring to the ideology
all the vigor and righteousness of the new
recruit. For example, when the white
supremacists' rally was cancelled on the Sunday
before the Democratic National Convention, the
Klan and other marchers simply went home,
while the Skins deliberately marched into the
area hoping for confrontation, which they got.
In a world of increasing chaos and conflicting
values, says Janet Caldwell of the Center for
Democratic Renewal, a watchdog group that
monitors the activities of the radical right, the
rigid absolutism of neo-Nazism can offer a
young person something like faith.
"They want to believe in something," she
says.
In cynical terms, what the Skins believe
appears to be the superiority of a straight, white,
Anglicized, male-dominated culture. They
believe in the use of unrestrained force and
violence to assert this culture, and the demeaning
use of epithets and symbols to intimidate all who
do not agree with them. Violent rampages are
known as "stomping" and the Skins are most
likely to go "stomping" in gangs.
One piece of Skinhead literature claims that
they are "the ultimate patriots. We fight for the
betterment of our society and the white race. We
will stop at nothing to achieve our goals...As it is
we have a nigger running for President this year
in our great nation. (This 'man' also happen [sic]
to support gay rights activists.) It's a sin."
Increasingly, concern over the threat posed by
the Skins to many of the inhabitants of the Little
Five Points area - gays, lesbians, blacks and
liberal political activists in particular - has
spread. Famed for its tolerant attitude and
eclectic but harmonious community, Little Five
Points has ironically been adopted as a base of
operation for the Skinheads.
"Skinheads are much scarier than the Klan,"
says one Little Five Points activist who
requested anonymity for fear of retaliation from
the Skins. "The Klan is made of people who
have roots in a community and they have to plan
out their acts. But Skinheads don't plan their
crimes. They are rootless and they take pride in
violence."
The first violent Skinhead incidents in the
Little Five Points area began in 1985 and
increased through the following year. In
December 1985, a gang of Skinheads attacked
the owner of a local punk club, "688," after they
were ejected from the club for their disruptive
behavior. After kicking Wicker unconscious,
they beat him in the head with a bottle so
viciously it took more than 100 stitches to repair
the wounds. Four of the Skins were arrested and
three are facing felony charges, which have not
yet come to trial.
Later that month, another Skinhead
threatened a gay waiter in a Little Five Points
restaurant with castration. Skins began to harass
both employees and patrons of the Little Five
Points establishments in which they were
hanging out, according to published reports and
Police
Cont'dfrom Page 1
as I could get."
Wilson said, however, that AGO members
are still skeptical about the committee. "We
don't believe it will be successful over the
long haul," he said.
Missing from the committee is anyone
affiliated with the AGC, and Woolard
admitted after the meeting that it was no
oversight "I've found them to be extremely
difficult to work with in a meeting situation -
quite disruptive," she said.
Still to be filled are slots for two additional
women and one man, to which Woolard
hopes to appoint qualified people of color, in
order to achieve racial balance on the
committee. The makeup of the committee
also gives it gender parity and a range of ages,
Woolard said.
Woolard said she hoped to have the
remaining open slots on the Police Advisory
Committee filled within the next month, so
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5^
Skinheads
eyewitness accounts. The seriousness of these
threats is underscored by the fact that nobody
wants to talk about the Skins unless promised
anonymity. They are frightened of reprisals.
In April 1986, Skinhead violence once again
resulted in injuries during a benefit held in Grant
Park to raise money for construction of a day
care center in Nicaragua. Skins disrupted the
proceedings by overturning literature tables and
threatening a number of benefit participants.
Then they attacked Rick Newburger, who had
been working one of the tables, for taking the
stage and denouncing their actions. Newburger
was taken to Grady Hospital for treatment of
injuries he sustained when the entire gang of
Skinheads surrounded him as he tried to leave
the hall and beat him senseless.
These attacks and the continued harassment
of the Little Five Points area led to the formation
of a group calling itself "Atlantans in Defense of
Democracy" (ADD). ADD launched a petition
drive and letter writing campaign aimed at the
city's public safety officials to alert them to the
emerging pattern of violence and intimidation.
ADD's efforts appeared to quell the threat
through most of 1987, but recent incidents
indicate that the Skins are experiencing a
resurgence. Police and other law enforcement
officials refuse to acknowledge that the Skins
represent an imminent collective threat to the
community, though they are well aware of the
incidents past and present.
-Amanda Bates
Next Issue: More on the
Danger From Skinheads
in Little 5 Points.
that it can began operating at full efficiency as
soon as possible. Among the problems she
hopes to tackle are the controversial police
roadblocks in front of the Gallus Restaurant
in Midtown, initiating police reporting of hate
crimes, to push for more comprehensive
AIDS training, and educating the community
on reporting crimes of violence and police
harassment.
Gay Center administrator Richard
Swanson declined to discuss with Southern
Voice the outcome of the MACGLO
meeting, which he was unable to attend, or
any effect it might have on the future of the
Gay Center's Task Force on Anti-Gay
Violence.
Along with their endorsement of the
ACLU-appointed committee, MACGLO
voted to send official notification of their
decision to Mayor Young and the Atlanta
City Council, as well as to Commissioner
Napper.
-David Tucker