Guest AuthorI’ve been wearing the clothes of a scary thug for 40 years and I didn’t even know it.
I’m talking about the hoodie, the low-cost hooded jacket that intimidates both neighborhood vigilante George Zimmerman and business tycoon Mark Cuban alike.
It all depends on where you get your fashion sense, I guess.
My first hoodie dates back to 1974, when I was making $130 a week in northern New Hampshire, where winter temperatures often hover around zero.
My car was a 1966 Chrysler convertible with a broken rear window, so you can imagine my delight when I found my first hooded sweatshirt at the local Army-Navy store. Finally I could protect my neck from frostbite when I drove the leaky Chrysler. Indeed, hoodies are standard apparel for construction workers and other folks who spend a lot of time outdoors in Northern winters.
Since 1978 I have been living in balmy Florida, but I always keep a couple of lightweight hoodies handy. In Florida a bald guy needs all the protection he can get from UV rays. And even in Pensacola the winter temperature occasionally dips into the 20s.
So I was stunned when Zimmerman said that one reason he became suspicious of Trayvon Martin is that the black teenager was wearing a hoodie as he walked through Zimmerman’s neighborhood.
I know only one scary person who wears a hoodie, and that’s a white guy — the evil football genius Bill Belichick, coach of my beloved New England Patriots.
I dismissed Zimmerman’s hoodie phobia as some wacky hang-up until Cuban recently announced that he would cross the street if he were approached by a black youth wearing a hoodie.
Let’s get real: Is it the hoodie, or is it the color of the person’s skin?
To be fair, Cuban also said he would cross the street if he was approached by a “white guy, bald head, tattoos everywhere,” he told Inc. magazine last week.
Fortunately for me, a certified bald white guy, my only tattoos are on my arms – hidden by my hoodie, perhaps – so presumably Mr. Cuban would be willing to share the same sidewalk with me.
It’s tempting to dwell on the irony that Cuban, the multimillionaire proprietor of the Dallas Mavericks, is such a sissy when it comes to hoodies and tattoos – especially since some of his employees may favor tattoos and hoodies. For a guy who noisily struts around courtside at games in a snug T-shirt, Cuban suddenly doesn’t look so manly.
But let’s give Cuban credit for trying to have a dialogue about how many people are full of fear often caused by stereotypes and fear.
He’s on especially perilous turf; Americans’ discussions about race are mined with all sorts of gotchas, and Cuban, as a highly visible person, is brave to address the subject. Many American business leaders have done just the opposite, preferring to hunker down and let the conversation be steered by extremists.
The rest of the nation should join the conversation that Cuban has generated; it’s long overdue. Just one last suggestion: Yes, clothes make the man, but a hoodie shouldn’t make the man so scared he crosses the street.
Mark O’Brien is a writer who lives in Pensacola. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
