ABSTRACT
A wide range of ethnicities are also integrated into skateboarding, which since the mid-1990s has often been seen as a racially mixed world. Skateboarding’s multi-ethnicity could then be viewed as largely a matter of appearances and branding, close to Brayton’s ‘crossover’ culture and ‘limited to the consumption of essentialized black culture such as rap and basketball apparel’. Injuries sustained while skateboarding in the urban realm are integral to this male identity and act as a means to physically display the rider’s commitment to skateboarding on a public stage. On the surface at least, skateboarding has largely remained a predominantly male activity, particularly during the 1990s when skate magazines tended to emphasize the transgressive exploits of lone male street skaters riding illicit downtown skatespots in the middle of the night. Numerous websites and social media also promote female skateboarding, many carrying powerful messages.
