Geraldo Rivera (via TalkingPointsMemo)
So, when the Trayvon Martin slaying entered the national consciousness, it became clear to most that a single person acting alone had killed a harmless youth and not faced any penalties for it. The youth’s crime? Being black, mainly; although his killer, George Zimmerman, claims he looked drunk.
Obviously, this set-off a whole host of people to debate the events of the night, and names like Emmett Till were tossed around. Some have focused on Florida’s “stand your ground” law, which allows someone to utilize self-defense to justify a killing even if they didn’t make an attempt to flee from their assailant. So, it appears to me that a single man, with a history of bad judgement calls, killed a teenager for no reason other than his suspicions.
But you know what, there was a possibility I hadn’t considered. Trayvon Martin was wearing a hooded sweatshirt. And Geraldo Rivera thinks this was as much a cause of his death as anything else. Now, this started creeping into territory that gets me a little scared. See, I’ve been to Britain, and in Britain, Mr. Rivera’s remarks would not be that far off from what people are willing to think. See, in Britain, the hooded sweatshirt has been transformed from an unobjectionable piece of clothing to the dreaded “hoodie” bringer of riots, crime, and destruction. I don’t know where along the way “hooded sweatshirt” became reduced to “hoodie” but I think that reduction could possibly be part of the problem. A hooded sweatshirt is just a sweatshirt with a bit of cloth to keep your head warm. A hoodie is a whole style of clothing. I actually think I grew up without distinguishing between a regular sweatshirt and a hooded sweatshirt when speaking.
It’s gotten so bad that a six-year old was actually banned from a supermarket for wearing a hooded sweatshirt that had been bought from said supermarket. That’s where Britain’s paranoia has brought it. They also rely on the famous “Anti-Social Behaviour Order“, labeling a whole generation “ASBOs” in slang for such innocuous activities as “loitering” or “spitting”. Luckily, ASBOs may be going away.
Fear of the hooded sweatshirt may not. Mr. Rivera is right in that it’s a pretty useful garment in avoiding a camera. But does that mean we go about stigmatizing what is a really comfortable and useful piece of clothing simply because of a few bad apples? It’s like banning cars because they kill people. Or because they’re used in crimes. At the end of the day, it shouldn’t matter what type of clothing you wear; whether you’re white or black, whether you’re Latino or Asian. You have the right to walk to the corner store and not be killed.
Sam, while I’m on board with most of your post, a part of it is wrong:
”a six-year old was actually banned from a supermarket for wearing a hooded sweatshirt that had been bought from said supermarket.”
Doesn’t “banned” mean he was kicked out and isn’t allowed to return? According to the article you cited, he was asked to take the hood off his head, like the store does for everyone. Although it is against store policy to enforce it with anyone younger than 10. He wasn’t banned from the store, we had an overzealous security guard who asked a kid to take the hooded part of the sweatshirt off his head. That’s all, according to the article.
Like I said, I’m with you on the rest. Geraldo was playing up to who he thought was his audience that day, but if you watch the clip where he says it, it seems even the hosts are taken aback by his ludicrous comments.
I’m not sure, the Daily Mail headline says “bans”. The security guard was following store policy of preventing people from entering the store if hooded clothing was worn. However, this might be why the Mail is sometimes referred to as the Daily Fail.
As a public school teacher I have seen hoodies being used as a way to hide one’s identity. There is a very fine line between automatically branding a hoodie-wearer as a social deviant or that person simply keeping warm – but why keep your hood on when it’s warm out? Sometimes when it walks like a duck…other times it may be a swan. Tough call to make but my sense is that some people take advantage of this quandary and claim their civil rights are being violated but really just want to hurt you in some way. I also see a parallel to the use of Facebook and other internet media to harass people. It’s the coward’s approach.
That said, my wife, a public school psychologist, said that some people may use the hoodie to deal with forms of rejection, including as a response to being labelled in some negative way and therefore deciding that, fine, I’ll be that way since you’ve already branded me that way. Complicated issue and certainly I don’t think being killed or attacked for wearing a hoodie is correct in any way.