"We're the heroes of the white working class": White Power Skinheads and Blue Collar Identity in Post-Industrial Baltimore

In the late twentieth century, as waves of change swept over cities and towns like Baltimore, people were left reeling. In this context, the American white power skinheads found their footing. Born in the late 1960s and early 1970s in neighborhoods with engrained class identities, these skinheads sought to recreate an 'authentic' working class, measured against traditionally masculine blue-collar whiteness They viewed whiteness as inseparable from working-class identity, a belief which was rooted in the history of white working people in the city and the nation. Skinheads also pursued an ideological agenda whose contours could be traced back to tropes of blue-collar political culture, namely mistrust of the 'elite.' But white power skinheads did not simply want a return to tradition; they wanted to create a whole new world, inspired by the past. Such a desire is evident in their cultural aesthetic and their militant politics. Skinheads made themselves look, sound, and act like the "heroes of the white working class," drawing from historical precedent and blue collar political and cultural 'heritage.' The racialized language and aesthetic of class identity offered working-class young men a sense of meaning and purpose in an uncertain time and led them down the path of radicalization.