highthief

I'm not sure I agree with this. You have to understand that in England, say, where skinheads made up a measurable proportion of the general population (as at one time Mods or Punks or Rockers did) and a large proportion of the football hooligan population, the impact of such a group on society is immeasurably greater than in most parts of North America.

I grew up in Montreal and in Liverpool and I knew such people on both sides of the pond. The fact is that one was never intimidated by skinheads in Montreal -their numbers were few, their cachet small, and you likely has as many friends to call upon as they did, if not more. The violence, while it existed, was no more or less than with other groups. The reverse was true in England. The original skins were basically a split from the Mods, an enormous part of the youth subculture, and were and continued to be the largely more violent part of that subculture, especially in the south of the country (hey, in Liverpool in the 70s, no one could afford a razor to cut their hair every day!)

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