<p>Some people really don’t want to see racism subside as a national obsession. So they are constantly scanning for examples of it. We have a black president. We have a black attorney general. We are not a perfect nation but we are not an overtly racist nation. There’s an argument to be made that, in fact, there is reverse racism very frankly at work within our employment and school admissions policies. Then there are those who call the “reverse racism” the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” And on and on and on it goes.</p>
<p>What we do have is a seriously sick economy. Can we please focus on what to do about that and stop worrying about whether or not it’s okay for our young male children to walk around with a hoodie up and shielding their face in public places? Obviously, doing so is somewhat creepy and menacing. It’s a dumb thing to do. It’s a dumb thing for a parent to rail about their kid’s right to do such a dumb thing. White or Brown or Black. It doesn’t matter. I just don’t see why a parent would possibly think wearing a hoodie up and shielding their face is cool. If it’s freezing cold out and their ears might fall off . . . well heck yeah! Wear the idiot hoodie! Sheesh.</p>
<p>I’ll get scolded or even banned for posting this but I think the attempts to turn the Martin case into some huge big example of racism is really an unconscious – or even conscious for some – attempt to move public attention away from the sick economy.</p>
<p>Every society has norms regarding appropriate dress. They are not unanimously shared, but they exist. Our society is freer than most. If you want to get a large tattoo on your face, you can. But it’s silly to then complain when other people stare at you, or won’t hire you because your appearance doesn’t represent the image they want their company to project. It’s immature to complain you are the victim of their silly prejudice because you knew in advance that certain segments of society are not going to appreciate your tattoo and yet you decided to get one regardless.</p>
<p>For the millionth time–this isn’t about wearing your hood up when it’s cold or precipitating outside or the AC is cranked up high, which are the excuses people keep posting. And it isn’t about wearing an ordinary hooded jacket or sweater from Target. Are you all really going to pretend that there aren’t youths of many races who deliberately wear clothes to make themselves look tough and intimidating? So when people think they look tough and intimidating, those people are prejudiced? I fail to see why a parent of a suburban teen, who won’t have to walk through dangerous streets between his parent’s car and the school building, would want to encourage people, racist or otherwise, to think their kid is bad news.</p>
<p>Every parent has to pick his or her battles. And perhaps this parent decided that his kid probably wasn’t in that much danger walking from the car to a suburban school. I would even venture to guess that other issues, such as those of cultural identity and of being a minority, were at play too. But the real issue is why any of us is in a position to second-guess the decisions of other parents, regardless of how many of our family members have different skin tones.</p>
<p>“Statement” clothing or body adornment is by definition that which others in the general population aren’t doing. To choose a totally benign example: Back when I was in HS in the early 80s the rocker guys wore white Capezio dance shoes. Nobody else wore them and they would have looked dumb, but they were an identifying clothing article and set the wearer apart in a group (no implication of thuggery, just musical taste).</p>
<p>I used the example earlier of tartan pants and/or a tartan shirt tied around the waist as statement clothing that both signified a musical taste and maybe a bit of an edgy attitude. However, in suburbia edgy did not veer into scary, just independent minded. Hoodies and lowish pants seem like they carry the same weight. When I see a teenage boy at my kids’ school wearing a hoodie with the top 3-4 inches of undies showing above sweats or pants it could be anyone of any social group or race. These things just are not defining characteristics in any way.</p>
<p>My DS (goofy, athlete band kid) has been known to sport bright orange below the knee Dickies shorts. We bought them as Goodwill for a class color day and they were so much fun that he just kept wearing them. Do they look like clown shorts? YES! Should he feel scared or scary because he’s wearing them? Absolutely not. I think his only risk is being carted in by the fashion police. :eek: </p>
<p>Yes, a facial tattoo is still a statement piece in most circles, but my work place has ceased to enforce the no visible tattoo policy as times and tastes have shifted enough to move general purpose tattoos off the list of automatic statement items. Men with pierced ears (one or both) are staring to fall into this category as well.</p>
<p>TheGFG–you say “youths of all races” now, but your OP was aimed at one race. And I still maintain that it’s your issue that you see “some” kids in hoodies and think thug.</p>
<p>Your logic is faulty OP. Is your concern safety for said hoodie wearer as you imply in your opening post, or merely other suburban observers as you
Imply in uour last post?
Sent from my MB860 using CC</p>
<p>There are clothing styles designed to look menacing, no matter who wears them. But yes, I specified that the student I had just seen was African-American because Martin was black too and the accusation has been made that, unfortunately, his race played into the perception of him looking threatening with the hood up. So no parent can claim ignorance s/he didn’t realize people could misjudge their own kid for wearing his hood up. I mean safety, but mostly in the sense of protecting your kid from being wrongly judged, which could lead to being falsely accused if at the wrong place at the wrong time, etc. Beyond racism, it’s also a practical matter–it is going to be harder to see facial expressions on a dark-skinned person whose face is shadowed, and people rely on facial expressions to discern friendliness and intent.</p>
<p>Apart from the issue of whether or not parents should keep their sons from wearing particular items of clothing - how would they do that, exactly? When I first read the OP I couldn’t help thinking that, even if the parent had admonished the son to keep his hoodie down on his way into school, what would prevent the guy from flipping it back up once Dad drove off? If the parent vetoes hoodies as an article of clothing, what would prevent the son from buying one on his own and keeping it in his locker? Adolescence is for exploring identity and many kids are not happy to do that within boundaries approved by their parents. </p>
<p>For all we know, the parent of the kid described in the OP has spent the last month warning, lecturing, and begging his son not to wear a hoodie to school. We all wish we could keep our children safe forever, but we can’t, even if they are willing to abide by our every warning. And they usually aren’t willing.</p>
<p>I am still stuck on race mattering RE clothing in a presumably neutral location. OP, you named Dickies as a suspect brand and named low slung and or long as suspect styles. Is my S suspect for wearing the below the knee Dickies clown shorts? If so, because of brand association? Because prisoners wear orange which connotes wannabe thuggishness? Because, being a white as snow ginger in big orange shorts he may be seen by some to have a menacing “A Clockwork Orange” appearance? Because of baseless childhood evil clown fears?
If he is not menacing in said Dickies shorts (worn in a totally goofy no meaning except “don’t you wish you could get away with wearing these?” manner), would the answer be the same were he black?</p>
<p>Again, you reference wrong place / wrong time. Is your suburban school drop off zone a place where this kid would be judged to be a criminal based on a hooded sweatshirt? If the answer is “no” move on already. If the answer is “yes” you’ve got bigger fish to fry.</p>
<p>Adolescence is a time of experimentation but it’s also a great time to teach kids to stand up straight, look people in the eye when speaking, shake hands, take their hats off in a restaurant if male and not to let it all hang out if female, to keep their elbows off the table and put the napkin in their lap…I’m not commenting on the hoodie thing because it’s not something I see alot in my neck of the woods but I do know if i caught one of the boys walking hunched over with a hood over their head and sunglasses on after dark, I’d be sitting them down for a mom talk.</p>
<p>Today I thought about the Martin case and the economy at the very same time! It’s not only possible but probably essential to focus on more than one aspect of society at a time.</p>
<p>Our race is part of who we are, and with it come certain associations–both positive and negtative. My son hates worrying about his hair, and claims he gets dandruff if his hair grows any longer than an inch or so. He has often threatened to shave it all off. Once, after cutting it extremely short, he kept getting asked if he was sick or had cancer. His sister told him he resembled the Dalai Lama, but one woman asked my son if he was a skinhead. I was surprised, because he isn’t exactly white. So, that question made me think that if he were a very pale-skinned teenager (and worse if he had any facial piercings), it would be a terrible idea to shave off all his hair! And if he did so after the news of some white-supremacist incident, it would be an even worse decision.</p>
<p>In short, the OP’s solution to those who judge others due to being prejudiced, arbitrary, idiotic, and just plain shallow is to knuckle under and cater to them. </p>
<p>Sorry, but that’s not only the behavior of a doormat conformist…but also deeply un-American…especially considering if that mentality prevailed with most…we wouldn’t have had movements like anti-slavery abolitionism in the antebellum, women’s suffrage/rights, Civil Rights to fulfill promises undermined by insidious Jim Crow laws/mentality/continuing prejudice…some of which continued into the '90s where I attended undergrad and in many other areas of the US to the present judging by news/events, etc. </p>
<p>In fact…we’d still be living in the early-mid 19th century…or if you want to go all the way back…still under the thumb of toffee-nosed British aristocrats maintaining much more rigid class/ancien-regime sensibilities regarding social-class status. </p>
<p>I don’t know about you…but such aristocrats…or the busybodyish upper/upper-middle class types who insist on the status quo are the very types who obstruct…rather than facilitate the very innovation/changes necessary for a healthy society to evolve and thrive.</p>
<p>I was not aware that wearing hoods is essential to human progress and the obliteration of the status quo, nor that not wearing them represents some ancien-reigme. We should all wear hoods up, then. Perhaps we should adopt the attractively hooded Lord Voldemort look. Death is always a threat to the status quo.</p>
<p>I’ll defend anyone’s right to wear their hoodies up free of any idiotic prejudicial judgments from others. </p>
<p>Personally, I’d be more thrilled with torturing 18th century British aristocratic types or the upper/upper-middle class busybody-set with blasted '70s-'80s punk/hardcore music, Vanilla Ice, and/or substitution of their elite fancy feast type meals with nothing, but the lowest grade of American fast food in existence(Yo Quiero Taco Bell?) and depriving them of tea time. :D</p>
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<p>Not necessarily. Case in point, Jim Crow and its effects lasted many generations…and to some extent…right into the present. Some of the very mentalities still seem to be with us as referenced by some on this thread.</p>
<p>^I realize this is only one aspect of this thread, but it seems relevant as it has been mentioned. Martin was wearing a hoodie with his hood up on a cool, and rainy February evening, (7 p.m.) while returning to pick up candy to watch a football game at his Dad’s home. He was not a thug and had no nefarious intent. He was imho, a kid, doing the exact things my own kid does all the time, wear a hoodie in Florida, walking through a gated community, where he belonged. To ascribe negative intent on a teen’s part or some form of bad parenting on a parent’s part seems misplaced to me. What should he have done? had an umbrella with a note attached that said I belong here, I am not a burglar? stay inside to avoid being perceived as a thug. honestly, and sadly, I think Zimmerman would have perceived Martin as a thug if he was wearing a tee shirt wtih a peace sign on it. </p>
<p>I have never seen kids wear hoods in the heat down here, so I am perhaps unclear of the situations you mention. Yes we need to educate our kids, but not ask them to cowtow to other’s fearful and negative perceptions especially in their walking into their school.</p>
<p>Quote from OP:
“but one woman asked my son if he was a skinhead. I was surprised, because he isn’t exactly white. So, that question made me think that if he were a very pale-skinned teenager (and worse if he had any facial piercings), it would be a terrible idea to shave off all his hair! And if he did so after the news of some white-supremacist incident, it would be an even worse decision.”</p>
<hr>
<p>Well, my son is about as white as they come and often wears his hair in an extremely short (almost bald) crew cut. Guess what? He is a rower . . . get it . . . CREW CUT! Should he worry? Should he not wear the Dickies shorts while sporting his crew cut because random lady might think he’s a white supremacist rather than a just a ginger supremacist rower. No facial piercings, though.</p>
<p>^^ I have a blue eyed, blond haired, over 6 ft, over 200 pound boy who basically loves to have a buzz cut because of athletics…he doesn’t cut one hair during ski season but come spring, the hair is gone. I’ve never given it a moments thought but then again maybe that particular cult doesn’t wear polo shirts.</p>
No facial piercings, though.</p>