A Picture Says A Thousand Words
Powerful.
Miami Heat players came together and put their hoodies up for Trayvon.
(LeBron James tweeted and Facebooked the picture.)
Tags: Trayvon Martin
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The folks at FreakOutNation pulled together a compendium of Jerry Rivers sporting a few hoodies in his day.
Whatever else it is, the oversized dark hoodie worn over the face is the uniform of black urban crime. Unfortunately, thugs have stolen the innocence from this simple and practical piece of clothing.
Make no mistake, the hoodie worn this way is not clothing; it is a mask. Masks are unarguably a threat in a context where they are not appropriate. Ski masks are useful and practical apparel too. But put one on and go make a deposit in your bank and let us know what happens.
Not to mention there are also young men who, although perfectly harmless, revel in the air of menace this style lends them, and enjoy the effect it has on others.
The team colors and posed photo, showing socialization and discipline, help to dissipate the air of menace which is the intended effect of the face-covering hoodie. But it is great as a show of support for Trayvon.
Not much different than the hooded sweatshirts worn back in the day except they zippered in the front and might have had a jean jacket over top of them
Everthing changed after crack entered the inner cities around 1985.
puck, according to Trayvon’s girlfriend, he said he pulled his hoodie up after he realized he was being followed.
He wanted to take shelter in his hoodie, not use it to intimidate people.
I wonder how many other people use it that way and are just assumed to be “trouble” because of our stereotypes. I bet just like a majority of women who use planned parenthood dont use it for abortions, most hoodie wearers just want to go about their business unharassed.
I’m not buying Zimmerman’s “hoodie” defense, just commenting on the hoodie pushback and the culture around hoodies.
Even if Trayvon had his hoodie zipped up to his nose, that is not justification for a self-defense killing. It was raining that day, and I’d probably have mine up too. Walking outdoors in the rain is an appropriate context for covering up. Loitering in a mall parking lot on a warm evening, for example, is not.
As Charlie Pierce noted yesterday, every time he sees a picture of someone who legally looted a company’s pension fund, that person is wearing an expensive suit.
If it comes down to having gun-crazed, hysterical reactions to crime, I vote we shoot all the guys in expensive suits before we get around to shooting all the guys in hoodies.
More hoodie supporters:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DeathSeventhSeal.png
http://virtualreligion.net/forum/images/emperor.jpg
With the amount of new guns that have been purchased since Obonehead became president, I think any violence started by the black racists will be met with counter-force like they have never faced before.
What are you talking about Rockland?
Yes, let’s stop wearing hoodies and while we’re at it stop dressing like sluts. Let’s allow weak-minded and insecure control freaks with racist or misogynist tendencies dictate our every move. Lest they feel provoked or threatened, poor things. Sounds like a great way to organize a society.
Oooh, Rockland, you’re so butch when you finger your weapon!
Exactly, Coolspringer! Let’s all get our wardrobes approved by what makes a white man wet his bed.
AQC “What are you talking about Rockland?”
He’s telling you that with a gun in his hand, he’s a REAL man.
(which of course means that he’s a dickless wimp).
Real men don’t pose like that.
i am literally wearing a hoodie with hood up right now.
my ears are cold.
Is this ok? I didn’t realize i needed to check.
I for one am not going to teach my children to trust strangers with hoods over their faces.
After we came down from the trees and started walking on the savannah, the ability to spot and avoid predators allowed humans to survive. This skill doesn’t require that you be right all the time, as long as you err on the side of caution. False negatives are OK, but ignoring the cues even once might be fatal.
The hoodie itself is not menacing. To be menacing, there must also be a certain demeanor and other behavioral and situational cues present. No, a person typing on a computer wearing a hoodie does not present a possible danger. That is a silly attempt at a rebuke.
Now, if put on a hoodie over my face and follow you to your car in a dark parking lot, will you be so dismissive? After all, I’m just returning to my car in the same row, right?
Sure, there is a perfect right for young men to adopt the style of hoodies worn over the face. But then there is also the right of everybody else to avoid the area and shop, visit, and live somewhere else.
I once tried an experiment while watching a group of horses in their paddock. I concealed myself behind a tree, and occasionally peeked out, as if I was stalking them. They became agitated and as a group, quickly moved to the other side. It was so disturbing I never did it again (I didn’t want them to get too agitated and possibly hurt themselves).
I guess I could have rebuked the horses and explained they should lighten up and not make bigoted assumptions about my intentions. Or perhaps I could have mocked them for being afraid of a human who meant them no harm. Instead, I just stopped the behavior.
None of this excuses Zimmerman, of course, who was the predator on that night in Florida.
puck, if you follow me to my car wearing a hoodie, or a business suit, or a t-shirt and jeans, or a cop uniform, or a bathing suit, I’m gonna keep my eye on you. I’m gonna embarrassingly and threateningly scream if you get “too close.” and I’m gonna use my own absurd standards for what “too close” is. I’m gonna get on a cell phone to someone for advice, and possibly help.
What I’m NOT gonna do is chase you through a neighborhood and shoot you.
This business about the hoodies is just a way for people to demonstrate, visibly, the absurdity of Zimmerman’s defense. HE knows it wasn’t what the kid was wearing over his Black skin that got him shot, it was the skin itself. *I* know that. The Miami Heat know it. President Obama knows it. Sane people do not CHASE people who they find threatening. They run away from them. That’s an instinct that pre-dates the ‘savannah.’
logic/fail
Post of the Day, heragain.
It isn’t the clothes, it is the behavior that is the threat cue.
It isn’t the clothes, it is the behavior that is the threat cue.
Agreed. And pulling down the hoodie over the face to form a mask is the key threat behavior, along with other elements.
Thanks for agreeing with me. For a moment I thought you were trying to say I was defending Zimmerman. I’m glad you weren’t.
And pulling down the hoodie over the face to form a mask is the key threat behavior
A mask??? Clearly you haven’t a clue, but are working pretty hard to make *some* point here. Besides, Trayvon had his hoodie up (on his head) on a rainy night. So if you are trying to make a point, you aren’t even making one from the circumstances at hand.
My point wasn’t about Zimmerman or Trayvon’s hoodie. I was careful not to link it to the Florida shooting. My point was about the hoodie response.
I can understand though if you want to falsely link my point to Zimmerman. That allows you to steal the emotion of the event and bring it to bear against my point, even though my point wasn’t about the Florida shooting. You might even get the usual suspects to cheer your stealing of the emotion. Cheap win, and way to avoid the logic.
I already made the point about the rainy night upthread, but still you pretend as hard as you can that you are just introducing the fact to me. I guess that makes you the clueless one, and the one who sees threats that aren’t there. Why would you quote it back to me as if I was unaware, unless you were deliberately trying to misinterpret me? Is that what you were doing?
Probably, because then you cut off my quote from this:
And pulling down the hoodie over the face to form a mask is the key threat behavior, along with other elements.
to this:
And pulling down the hoodie over the face to form a mask is the key threat behavior
Now that’s working hard to make a point that isn’t even there.
Is that really how you read my comment, cutting off the parts you didn’t want to hear? Or did you read it, and just deliberately decide to misrepresent it?
“Cheap win, and way to avoid the logic. ”
here here.
I feel like sometimes folks here and on other blogs want to go for the “take down” in a debate so much they forget, or ignore the point of a poster.
I think Puck has proven he (?) isnt some gun-humper/racist apologist. The fact is, wrongfully I feel, the cultural portrayal (mostly because of the media) of the ‘urban hoodie look” is one of at least a “trouble maker”… the wearer doesnt have to be black or white…. just like we have preconceived notions, thanks to pop culture about bikers, and punks, and rednecks… they are all wrong, but there. I could be wrong, but I take you point (puck) to mean that society has false notions about certain types of dress, but has the notions. If you are going to dress a way that has been wrongly labeled, you should be at least aware.
Now let’s hear all the “YOU RACIST!!!! YOU SUPPORT ZIMMERMAN!!” comments!
My point wasn’t about Zimmerman or Trayvon’s hoodie.
And since we are talking about hoodies here and how it has been made to represent threatening black kids, then what was your point? A hoodie as a mask? Seriously? We already get the white privilege fear, not so sure you needed to demonstrate it for us. But the point is still about behavior rather than the clothing and creating a behavior just to make your point about what white people in the suburbs fear wasn’t necessary. And the people who create their narratives based on clothing are the people with the issues that need to be worked — not the people doing the wearing.
And I’ll make the point that you wouldn’t be making claims about a cheap win unless you got the failed logic you put up here.
This business about the hoodies is just a way for people to demonstrate, visibly, the absurdity of Zimmerman’s defense. HE knows it wasn’t what the kid was wearing over his Black skin that got him shot, it was the skin itself.
That comment just needs to be repeated and repeated. Everytime someone says “hoodie” sunstitute “black skin” and you reveal the truth.
of course it isnt the fault of the wearer…. but knowing people… say in a white gated community in a STG state…. will look at you in a certain way is important. Just knowing stereotyping is wrong and working hard to eliminate it wont alone save you from a gun humper who has been brain washed by Fox.
Sorry SB. Trayvon gets 0% of the blame in my book. You see it differently, but I would suggest that is, in itself, a sign of how deeply internalized racism is in America.
well played.
but snark aside, acknowledging known prejudices is not an endorsement of them
I think what bothers me the most about the hoodie discussion is that it begins and ends with… things about one black person applies to all black people. Trayvon was an individual.
The hoodie discussion seems based on… one black guy in a hoodie = all black guys in a hoodie.
The hoodie conversation is a distraction, designed to, imo, feed into our fears and take the focus off of what happened to Trayvon. If we keep talking about stupid hoodies we’re only feeding into the discussion FOX started and wants to continue. I refuse to be part of that. If you have a problem with hoodies, then that’s your problem – and that’s a big problem since I can’t think of one place you can go without seeing a flippin’ hoodie. My house is off limits to you as well, since I’ve spotted two hoodie clad kids this morning – and, OMG!, one of them was black!
The problem is not the hoodie, the problem is the mindset (and stereotyping) of people seeing a hoodie and thinking trouble. Many people do the same thing with… burqa = terrorist, or related to a terrorist, mini skirt = slut, khakis and polo shirt = good guy.
i dont think that’s what people are saying.
there are 2 conversations going on here. one about race, zimmerman and the Sanford PD are racists. there is systemic rascism there.
Im going to attempt to make my point in a vaccume.. even though i no know discussion should be had in one… so remember that when forming your kamea-meah attack of blog rage. im NOT talking about Trayvon martin now… k?
Clothing, and how people may judge you is a similar talk about what you say. I think we can agree that clothing is a form of speech. WE often remind people that they aren’t entitled to consequence free speech. Legally, you should be able to wear what you want… but just like people will assume things about you and treat you a certain way based on words you use, they will do the same…. right or wrong….. mostly wrong.. based on your cloths.
That, in my opinion is the basic hypothesis that ass holes like Geraldo use when apologizing for the bastards
There’s just one conversation going on here. And that is one where one set of people who can make the stereotypes can insist that the people being stereotyped must always be aware that they are always and everywhere the object of someone else’s judgement.
I’m stunned that you might think that a black kid wearing a hoodie or a woman wearing a short skirt or a white guy with close cropped or a shaved head doesn’t already know that he or she is sporting signifiers that give the folks who rely on their stereotypes the shivers. People who are the subject of other people’s stereotypes typically know it and the details of that. The best of them don’t give a damn and live their lives as they see fit. How you might judge the wearing of hoodies, short skirts or anything else is functionally Your Problem.
well, that’s my que to stop trying.
The problem is not the hoodie, the problem is the mindset (and stereotyping) of people seeing a hoodie and thinking trouble.
I’ll go you one better: The problem is not the mindset “of people seeing a hoodie and thinking trouble.” The problem is the mindset of people building and then attacking straw people who they claim see a hoodie and think trouble.
It takes more than just a hoodie. It takes other behaviors in conjunction with the hoodie/mask to trigger the fight or flight response (mostly flight, I would hope).
A hoodie as a mask? Seriously?
Yes, seriously. A Miami Heat player’s own mother would cross the street if she saw her son coming toward her dressed like that.
The foolishness of the hoodie protests is that Trayvon was not shot because he was wearing a hoodie. He was shot because he crossed the path of a crazy predatory killer.
“The problem is the mindset of people building and then attacking straw people who they claim see a hoodie and think trouble.”
are you saying that there ARENT people who stereotype based on clothing? I dont think saying that people profile is building strawmen. There are people who will do that… as we have had to see the past few days, and they will do what they do. It’s wrong, and we should discourage it, but it is something that happens.
It’s like saying “there are homophobic bullies out there” … you arent telling a person not to come out…. it is just a true statement that should be said.
Oh and by the way, I have been held down by three black guys wearing hoodies over their faces while they went through my pockets. I was expecting a bullet in the back of the head at any minute, but obviously it never came. The experience does inform one’s point of view.
Don’t confuse being streetwise with being bigoted.
That Heat player’s mother probably wouldn’t cross the street if her son came walking down the street in said hoodie. But then, i live in West Center City where jumping out of your skin or crossing the street at every black man walking in a hoodie is decidedly not a survival skill. I totally get how folks in soccer country could convince themselves otherwise. And we’re back to heragain’s post is the real streetsmarts.
. I totally get how folks in soccer country could…….
i dont think anyone here lives in europe