Thug or Not?
The "Hoodie" has been around as long as I can remember. It is not new to the world or to Black America, but it is what street thugs have embraced as their uniform. In a nation filled with self expression it boggles the mind why so many gravitate towards anonymity.
But the hoodie is a prerequisite for robbery, shop lifting, assault and dealing drugs. So much so that in the UK "Hoodie Free" zones have popped up in shopping districts throughout the country, and many stores have outright bans against wearing hoodies.
Interestingly Canada has no such issue with the hoodie which is considered a necessary item throughout much of the year.
But in the Carolina's and parts further south including Florida the hoodie when worn beyond the months of December and January brings along suspicion.
CMPD Officers will tell you they repeatedly have to ask youth to remove their hoodies when being questioned either on the street or during a traffic stop. CMS teachers also spend an inordinate amount of time telling kids to put down their hoods.
Walk uptown in Charlotte before, during or after any Bobcats game and you are confronted with a sea of hoodies. Black kids just "hangin out" around the Cable Box. Most are of course harmless but still they harass families by being loud, making sudden taunting moves and running circles around people they feel can be easily intimidated. And Micheal Jordan wonders why the Bobcats can't draw in more fans.
Trayvon Martin Thug or Not?
No one will ever know what really happen the night that Trayvon Martin put his hoodie up and was confronted by a community watch captain cop wannabe named Zimmerman. Martin's girlfriend's account of her conversation is plausible but counter intuitive, why would he put up his hoodie? Why would he not call 911 himself?
It is unfortunate that the hoodie has become equated with hoodlum, and thug. But it is what it is. And if you approach me during the dark of night in a parking lot with your hoodie up and your hands in your pockets, you can bet I have my hand on my Glock and I am only seconds away from ending your life.
One Final Note: Have you identified the "thug" in the first photo? Yes that is Rafael "Rafa" Nadal Parera the Spanish professional tennis player and a former World No. 1. rated player in the world. He looks like trouble, and he is if you are facing him on a clay tennis court.
17 comments:
Yo Cedar! Lets get us some hoodies so when we ride in your hoopty mobile again no one will mess with us. Or maybe they will try to shoot us because we look like thugs. Wonder how that will work out.
It is a thug thing, this crap about Trayvon being a "good boy" is a bunch of bull.
And Obama with his "Trayvon in what my son would look like" is insulting to all Americans.
"No prior trouble with the law" doesn't mean he was an angel, just that he hadn't been caught.
As Cedar said in a prior post Cop wanna be meets thug wanna be and the results were tragic.
Imagine if Zimmerman was a real cop and Obama spoke out.
Obama has already told the nation how he feels about the brotherhood and the Police and Police investigations. Remember the northern professor who showed his ass and was arrested. Didnt he say the Polce department was stupid and how he expected an apology to his brethern..
The fact that you walk in your neighborhood with a "glock" scares me more than anyone with a "hoodie".
The fact that a big dude was following me when I was exercising my right to walk would scare the hell out of me. Walking when black is not a crime.
If Trayvon were white and pulled his hoodie up on a Rainy night, would the results have been the same?
The Bully wannabe rent a cop obviously showed a total lack of judgement...he was not a trained professional, just a bully with a gun playing a dangerous game.
Maybe HE should have called 911 if he thought Trayvon was a threat, instead of taking the law into his own untrained hands.
This freaking return to a wild west mentality is going to result in many more innocent people being unjustifiably murdered.
You can try to smear thus kid with innuendo and the usual racist crap......but this was plain and simple....big neighborhood watch dude with a Gestapo mentality playing policeman with disastrous results.
Trayvon was no angel. But in these circumstances, he did not deserve to die.
The Observer article today saying this case highlights the flaw in the Castle Doctrine law is itself seriously flawed. This shooting has nothing to do with self defense or the castle doctrine. It has to do with a wannabe who decided to confront a kid because he thought the kid looked suspicious. He should be in jail.
But yes, kids walking around in a hoodie in 70+ degree weather is not normal and is suspicious. If it was raining, then that's more understandable.
9:50,
I agree with you. However; Zimmerman did call 911, and called the kid a f....coon at the beginning of the call. He was later told not to follow the kid, but it was reported that you could hear him breathless on the tape after that indicating that he was running after the kid.
Anyway, I sincerely hope the family gets justice for Treyvon.
With that said, I believe Obama is only using this unfortunate situation to secure votes and divert attention from F&F. If the timing was different, I doubt Obama would have a word to say.
Zimmerman was a crackpot. This is obviously a profiling, race targeted crime. However, the media needs to back off of it being white on black. This this P.O.S. has a white name, take a look at him...he's far from white.
I'm so proud of Obama reaching out to Trayvon's family and putting it on a personal level by saying that Trayvon is what his son would look like. So what about the little white teen that was doused in gasoline by two black teens and lit on fire. Is Obama going to give his mother any words of comfort? Probably not...wouldn't want to take racial sides this close to an election.
12:45,
Here is a quote from the article at the link below which probably explains why Obama is not getting involved in the case of the white teen set on fire by 2 black kids and harassed by teachers etc. I agree he should make a statement about that.
"Where would a teacher get the idea that all whites are responsible for the Jasper tragedy? It’s not hard to figure out. Black-liberation theology (BLT) instructs, writes the man some regard as its father, Professor James Cone, “All white men are responsible for white oppression.” And how common is BLT? Well, Cone’s books were required reading at Barack Obama’s long-time house of worship in Chicago, Trinity United Church of Christ"
http://www.themoralliberal.com/2012/03/07/was-boy-in-k-c-fire-attack-burned-by-his-schools-racist-teaching/
The report I saw this morning said the Zimmerman was wearing a hi-vis lime green jacket with Community Watch writen in bold letters. Sounds like Trayvon knew he was being watched and should have known the guy watching him was a rent-a-cop.
If Zimmerman's account is to be accepted then there is no reason to charge the man. This circus of Al Sharpeton is a joke.
You know what happened Trayvon got in Zimmermans face and didn't back down when he say the weapon. truthful and the kid attacked him why did t
Anon 3:16
No one knows what happened.
Anyone can wear a community watch jacket for God's sake....it carries no authority.
And if some aggressive big white dude started getting in my face for no good reason, I might question his authority to do so....and I am white.
The "community watch" wannabe should have simply called 911 AND WAITED until the real police arrived .
He had no legal authority to detain this kid....period.
12:00, exactly right and well said. And it needs to be pointed out every time the anti-gun crowd starts down that road. This has nothing what-so-ever to do with the Castle Doctrine. None of us was there and don't know exactly what happened but it does sound like the "Hispanic dude" (yea 3:29, he was Hispanic, not a "white dude" - inconvenient truth, sorry)put himself into a force situation - which violates the rules of CCW.
3:29
Nice, and good point but right doesn't make might.
There are plenty of dead black and white kids who had screwed up parents who taught them your way of thinking.
"You have no right to detain me" and they ended up dead.
Woundn't it have been better if Trayvon just put his hands up and waited for the cops?
Then he could have told the world about how wrong it is to sterotype black kids as thugs, now he's just another dead as dirt black thug.
no way to know if he put his hands up or what happened once confronted, but since Zimmerman was kicked out of school for the safety of himself and other students the week before, so there must be something dangerous or over the edge about the guy before the incident.
This is some information released from the police department: http://sanfordfl.gov/investigation/trayvon_martin.html
Martin was on top of Zimmerman beating him, while Zimmerman was screaming for help before he shot him.
Zimmerman's story is he lost sight of Martin and was walking back to his car when Martin attacked him.
Anon 11:11
Ahhh, that would be Zimmerman's statement.
This is a correction to the post I made at 5:09.
Reading the article noted in that post again, I am not sure if it meant Zimmerman was kicked out of school the week before the incident or the week before the article. Sorry about that.
Anyway, with "hoodies on the hill" and the "million hoodie march" we can expect to see alot more hoodies.
I am not bothered by hoodies, I have one, so does my dog. I just hope that people wear them responsibly and do not see this as a liscense to harass while wearing them.
2:02 and 5:09
Zimmerman was asked to leave school not because of what HE might do to other students, but because of the potential harm that could come to his fellow classmates from vigilantes, etc. looking FOR Zimmerman, SHOULD he decide to return to classes. Regardless of any legal prosecution as a result of his actions the night Trayvon Martin died, Zimmerman's life (and probably his family members' lives) are ruined. I doubt they will ever again live anywhere safely.
And just to clarify: I am certainly not coming to Zimmerman's defense. My point is that he not only destroyed Martin's family, he also adversely affected his own family. This whole situation has pretty much re-coined the historial phrase "the shot heard 'round the world."
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