Skinheads in the Antelope Valley :: essays papers

Skinheads in the Antelope ValleyWilliam Finnegans essay The Unwanted explains the history andmake-up of the Antelope Valley and then explores the lives of someteenage citizens in order to uplift reasons that two rival gangs havesuch a significant role in the community and on its people. Absentparents and lack of education are just two factors facing teens thatultimately led the Los Angeles Suburb into becoming a society whereSkinheads and Boneheads are a norm and accepted as a part of everydaylife. C. Wright Mills idea of the sociological perspective, lookingpast the facades, is useful when analyzing the micro individual, andmacro broad, causes of teens becoming skinheads. Each day Americaseems to become much and more diverse. Some people learn to accept thefact that America is made up of many different ethnic groups, whileothers believe the solely ethnic group should be their own. There arevarious reasons for discrimination and it is a very controversialissue. In Finnegan s article he describes two gangs with fenceviews concerning racism and how each group expresses their beliefs.The racist and anti-racist beliefs dont always end at the individual.Death is an all too common end and when an opinion becomes life baleful a problem arises. According to Finnegan, one of the twomajor gangs that occupy the streets of Lancaster and the AntelopeValley is, a white-supremacist skinhead gang, the Nazi Low Riders(N.L.R.s) and the other is, their rival gang of anti-racistskinheads, the Sharps (1998, p.88). virtuoso major quality the two gangsshare is their lack of education. Most, if not all, of the teensFinnegan interviewed, dropped out of schoolhouse, even though later someused other means of acquire a high school diploma or acquiring a highereducation. Also it appears both gangs tend to resolve their issueswith violence. Most people would admit that some violence is ineveryone, but it seems that well educated people often find other meansto conquer the ir problems or go round solving them. Through historyknowledge has proved to be an unavoidable part of life. As children inthe community began dropping out of schools in bulky numbers these kidswere forced to, willingly or not, gain knowledge elsewhere (1998). Amacro cause for the growing numbers of students dropping out of schooland joining the gangs, could be that the ideas and values of thosegangs quickly spread through the streets and classrooms. This Leadsthe teenagers to make decisions about wether or not they agree with the