quote:

...let’s talk hoodies.

His hoodie killed Trayvon Martin as surely as George Zimmerman did.

Remember when my friend and colleague the estimable Juan Williams got fired from NPR for saying that Muslims formally garbed freaked him out at airports? Juan is among America's sharpest commentators. He wasn't justifying his reaction, he was copping to it. Maybe shock therapy or a semester of sensitivity training could change it, otherwise It is what it is.

No one black, brown or white can honestly tell me that seeing a kid of color with a hood pulled over his head doesn’t generate a certain reaction, sometimes scorn, often menace.

When you see that kid coming your way, unless you specifically recognize him you are thinking ghetto or ghetto wannabe high-style or low-brow wise-ass. Pedestrians cross the street to avoid black or brown hoodie wearers coming their way.

Because this is a teachable moment let me speak plainly.

Whatever Reverends Sharpton and Jackson say in Florida Friday, after listening to the 911 tapes and hearing the witness’ testimonials, I believe Trayvon Martin would be alive today but for his hoodie.

I want the feds to thoroughly investigate and prosecute vigorously if the evidence warrants. But understanding the wrath currently focused on George Zimmerman and the police chief and the town council and the gun sellers and everyone else, I am begging parents of kids in Trayvon’s vulnerable demographic to heed my politically incorrect approach to this story.

If you dress like a hoodlum eventually some schmuck is going to take you at your word.

Remember Elvis’ ‘In the ghetto’? or that old Johnny Cash song about not taking ‘your guns to town son, leave your guns at home Bill, don’t take your guns to town?’

The kid in the both songs dies in totally predictable gun fights. Trayvon was unarmed save his box of skittles. But his hoodie gave his assailant cause to think him the enemy.

Maybe his specific encounter with an over-zealous, gun-toting, blood-lusting neighborhood-watch captain was less predictable than usual, but not by much.

I am begging parents to unbait the trap. Don’t let your child provoke madness. Agonize all you want about the unfairness of stereotypes. Argue how it amounts to a million, million little cuts of racial profiling. Work to change the world. Rail against the inequities of life; but don’t let your child go out into the hard cruel world wearing a costume that is really a sign that says ‘shoot me.’

quote:

ORIGINAL: subrob1967

Gerardo can't be racist, he's brown, and a progressive! Didn't you read the memo?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Fightdirecto

quote:

ORIGINAL: subrob1967

Gerardo can't be racist, he's brown, and a progressive! Didn't you read the memo?

He may be brown - but he sure isn't a progressive.

Didn't you read the memo?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hillwilliam

Watch out Bill Belichick. I can only imagine him pacing the Patriot's sideline and BOOM.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Iamsemisweet

Classic blame the victim. Predictable that someone of geraldo's intellectual ilk would come up with it, sooner or later. Wonder what he thinks about kids who wear their jeans down around their knees.

Mommas, don't let hour babies grow up to wear hoodies.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Musicmystery

What in particular is racist about him?

quote:

Every single day for seven months out of each year my fourteen year old son leaves our home wearing a hooded sweatshirt. He loves Skittles and tea. Never once have I worried he would be shot and killed for walking down the street and talking to a friend on a cell phone. Not one single time. Most days, I am ashamed to admit, I don’t even remember what a privilege that is.

White privilege? Um…yeah. My kid is white and he wears a hoodie, and when he and his friends cross the street between the closest snack vendor and our neighborhood, nobody stops them to ask what they are doing. They are not assumed to be up to no good, nor does anyone think they don’t belong here. They are white kids in rural Tennessee. They belong here – whatever the hell that means – and that turns my stomach inside out...

Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old in a suburb of Orlando, Florida, was shot and killed by a man who, even after being told by the 911 operator to back off, pursued him and shot him in the chest. His killer, self-appointed neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman, claims he was protecting his property and that ultimately, this was an act of self-defense.

This won’t happen to my son because he is white...

No, my son is not bulletproof. Do not misunderstand me. Bullets care not for the color of my son’s sun-kissed skin, or his feathery blond hair. If someone shoots him in the chest — much less from a distance short enough that they could have instead reached out to shake hands — he will die… just like Trayvon Martin died...

But people who hold guns care deeply about the color of my son’s skin — as do teachers and neighbors, executives and stay-at-home moms, and every other person from sea to shining sea...even if they don’t want to.

The truth is, we all see color. People with every single shade of skin, from every age, political leaning, economic status, etc., see color if they see at all. We see one another through our filters, and sometimes our filters tell us lies. That’s what happened to George Zimmerman. His filter told him that a young black man walking through his gated community was “suspicious,” and it was a lie.

Tragically, Zimmerman believed the lie. There is no part of me that believes, based on what I’ve read and watched, that he shot Martin for recreation. This was not a hate crime in the same way that Mathew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., were murdered for being gay or black. This was violence perpetuated by fear, a reaction to the little voices in Zimmerman’s head that misconstrued a situation into a fantasy — a deadly one.

I’m unsure which of those two scares me more but, honestly, I believe it is the latter...

I can’t stop thinking about the fact that Trayvon Martin was hunted by his killer. Evidenced by the recording of his own 911 call, Zimmerman literally chased him down. Trayvon was trying to get away because he was scared. Zimmerman was so consumed by his fear that he couldn’t even recognize that he was actually giving Martin a reason to act suspiciously, to try to get away. A man with a gun was hunting a boy with Skittles and tea, and the man was so consumed by his fear that he couldn’t even see what was happening inside him.

quote:

Watch out Bill Belichick. I can only imagine him pacing the Patriot's sideline and BOOM.

quote:

ORIGINAL: kdsub

quote:

Watch out Bill Belichick. I can only imagine him pacing the Patriot's sideline and BOOM.

As a Rams fan we can only hope.

Butch

quote:

ORIGINAL: subrob1967

Gerardo can't be racist, he's brown, and a progressive! Didn't you read the memo?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Iamsemisweet

Classic blame the victim. Predictable that someone of geraldo's intellectual ilk would come up with it, sooner or later. Wonder what he thinks about kids who wear their jeans down around their knees.

Mommas, don't let your babies grow up to wear hoodies.

quote:

ORIGINAL: subrob1967

Gerardo can't be racist, he's brown, and a progressive! Didn't you read the memo?