CLOSE-UP

LEONARD FINK

Growing
Menace

Special to The Jewish News

he brawl started in Novem-
ber after a meeting to ad-
dress racial tensions.
Three outsiders, dressed
as skinheads, entered Groves
High School in Birmingham. They
joined other skinheads leaving the
meeting. The fight started when the
skinheads provoked a black student.
The black student was later
suspended because of the brawl.
Parents were outraged. Richard
Lobenthal, regional director of the
Anti-Defamation League of B'nai
B'rith, says the suspension was
wrong, and chastised the Birm-
ingham school system for mishandl-
ing the event.
Two skinheads involved in the
fight were transferred to Seaholm
High School, leaving the situation at
Groves quieter.
"There's no problem at Groves
since they shipped the kids to
Seaholm," says Jennifer Levin, editor
of The Scriptor, Groves' student
newspaper. "But that doesn't com-
pletely solve the problem. It just gives
it to someone else."
Groves is just one area institution
where the skinheads have left a
mark. Recent incidents involving
skinheads include a nightclub in
Flint, which was heavily damaged
when skinheads disrupted a rock con-
cert. Racial incidents and name-
calling took place at Berkshire Mid-
dle School in Birmingham and a
Chaldean-owned grocery in Hazel
Park was daubed with swastikas.
Although skinheads are active at
other area schools, there have been no
other violent incidents reported.
Observers fear the number of
local skinheads is growing, and that
they are becoming better organized.
Although only a small percentage of
skinheads have Nazi ties, an
estimated 100 neo-Nazi skinheads are
in greater Detroit, 200 in the state
and about 3,000 nationwide.
The ADDs Lobenthal believes

24

FRIDAY. FEBRUARY_ 17. 1989

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