The taste of blood, and black shoe polish in my mouth. The sounds of angry grunts, and yelling, loud, and incomprehensible punk rock and heavy metal music pounding in my ears. The uncontrollable urge to curl into a fetal position to protect myself from swinging fists, stomping feet, and smashing beer bottles. Pain…lots of pain! This was my initiation, and my first day as a member or “brother”, of the S.H.A.R.P.'s.

S.H.A.R.P. is an acronym for “Skin Heads Against Racial Prejudism”, the complete opposite of a Neo (new) Nazi sect or organization. As an organization ourselves, we believed in the “Absolute” freedom for all races, except for racist of course, especially Neo-Nazis. We despised everything about them, their beliefs, and their actions towards the non-white community. In fact, you could say that we were racist against racist! It is kind of ironic if you think about it. One could possibly say that we were ruthless, and relentless in our beliefs about racism. Sometimes we would gather in numbers and try to instill our beliefs onto others with parties and rallies. If that did not work well enough for us, we would use brute force to “instill” our beliefs. We thought that we were doing something for the “greater good” of mankind. Actually…we were nothing more than a very large, well-organized gang with leaders, ranks, and smaller cells within certain regions of the city who acted out against hate crimes with hatred.

We would travel around in our city and other neighboring cities in groups ranging anywhere from three, to twenty-three brothers, searching for Neo-Nazis and others who we thought were acting in a “racist manor”, physically and/or psychologically harming them in any way that we saw fit! I would rather not go into a whole lot of detail, but sometimes it could get extremely gruesome.

For example…I have witnessed an act that is so horrifying, that it hasn’t even been recreated or used in any horror film that I can recall seeing. It has been called a “curb-check”, among other names that we will not discuss! A quick explanation of this would be that after some unfortunate person had been beaten into submission, usually unconsciousness, they are forced facedown, into a position that would appear that they were actually trying to “bite-down” on a street curb! That’s not the worst part of the situation. At that time, someone from the group (usually someone wanting to advance their status in the organization) would physically kick that person in the back of the head, causing their teeth, jaw, and sometimes-other various parts to break! The sound of it all still haunts me. A lot of times, things like this would happen in front of a large crowd of innocent people. We did this just to make a point.

There were also times when we were staring at the smoking end of gun so to speak. Like an incident that involved eight Neo-Nazis kicking the “s*#^” out of me at a local heavy metal concert on a night that I was not in the company of my brothers! I was lucky just to make it out of the concert alive. This was not my only encounter that I experienced as a “SHARP”. I have also been stabbed to many times to count, and hit in the mouth with an aluminum baseball bat. I have even been shot at point-blank range with a 22-caliber pistol (which I ended up confiscating from the nice gentleman)! Needless to say…I’ve had my fair share of bumps and bruises. “What comes around, goes around” I always say!

After several grueling years and some odd months of being a “SHARP”, I had an epiphany. I realized that I had become exactly what I had hated the most…a hater. I not only hated everyone around me, but I hated myself as well. I had allowed myself to become the very object of my own disgust, and I wasn’t any better than the people that I had scorned for so long. I needed a way out fast. If my lifestyle did not kill me, I was going to end up in prison. I have done, and said so many horrible things that I don’t think that I will ever be able to repay the destruction that I have caused, but I will never stop trying.

I left the city on May 7th 1996, exactly one month after I chose to serve my country to my fullest ability by joining the U.S. Army. Since then, I have been a husband for eleven years, a volunteer fire fighter for six, a father for eight, and a student for two. I now have faith, a willingness to love, and a better purpose in life, but the word “SHARP” will always cut me like blade.

Kane