Posted on 03/26/2012 11:32:42 AM PDT by jazusamo
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It is not often that I agree with Geraldo Rivera, but recently he said something very practical and potentially life-saving, when he urged black and Hispanic parents not to let their children go around wearing hoodies. There is no point in dressing like a hoodlum when you are not a hoodlum, even though that has become a fashion for some minority youths, including the teenager who was shot and killed in a confrontation in Florida. I don't know the whole story of that tragedy, any more than those who are making loud noises in the media do, but that is something that we have trials for. People have a right to dress any way they want to, but exercising that right is something that requires common sense, and common sense is something that parents should have, even if their children don't always have it. Many years ago, when I was a student at Harvard, there was a warning to all the students to avoid a nearby tough Irish neighborhood, where Harvard students had been attacked. It so happened that there was a black neighborhood on the other side of the Irish neighborhood that I had to pass through when I went to get my hair cut. I never went through that Irish neighborhood dressed in the style of most Harvard students back then. I walked through that Irish neighborhood dressed like a black working man would be dressed and I never had the slightest trouble the whole three years that I was at Harvard. While I had a right to walk through that tough neighborhood dressed in a Brooks Brothers suit, if I wanted to and if I could have afforded one, which I couldn't it made no sense for me to court needless dangers. The man who shot the black teenager in Florida may be as guilty as sin, for all I know or he may be innocent, for all I know. We pay taxes so that there can be judges and jurors who sort out the facts. We do not need Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton or the President of the United States spouting off before the trial has even begun. Have we forgotten the media's rush to judgment in the Duke University "rape" case that blew up completely when the facts came out? If the facts show that a teenager who was no threat to anyone was shot and killed, it will be time to call for the death penalty. But if the facts show that the shooter was innocent, then it will be time to call for people in the media and in politics to keep their big mouths shut until they know what they are talking about. Playing with racial polarization is playing with fire. Much has been made of the fact that the teenager was unarmed. The only time I have ever pointed a loaded gun at a human being, I had no idea whether he was armed or not. All I knew was that I could hear his footsteps sneaking up behind me at night. Fortunately for both of us, he froze in his tracks when I pointed a gun at him. If he had made a false move, I would have shot him. And if it had turned out later that he was unarmed, I would not have lost a moment's sleep over it. You know that someone was unarmed only after it is all over. If he attacks, you have to shoot, if only to keep the attacker from getting your gun. It so happened that the man I pointed a gun at was white. But he could have been any color of the rainbow, and it would not have made the slightest difference. Let the specific facts come out in the Florida case. That is why we have courts. Have we forgotten the Jim Crow era, with courts making decisions based on the race of the defendants, rather than the facts of the case? That is part of the past that we need to leave in the past, not resurrect it under new racial management. Who is really showing concern for the well-being of minority youngsters, Geraldo Rivera who is trying to save some lives, or Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and others who are hyping this tragic episode for their own benefit? Race hustlers who hype paranoia and belligerence are doing no favor to minority youngsters. There is no way to know how many of these youngsters' confrontations with the police or others in authority have been needlessly aggravated by the steady drumbeat of racial hype they have been bombarded with by race hustlers. |
Yeah, well, when you actually LIVE in the “NYC weather mindset” you wear a hoodie when you’re fishing, working in the yard, walking the dog or whatever else it is you feeling like doing.
One of mine has “Holloman AFB” on it and pics of an F22, a 117 and a couple others.
That’s one seriously dangerous ‘gang’ ;)
It used to be in the wannabee gang world that Timberline boots and a fur collar winter jacket (the ‘arctic’ kind that zip up like Kenny on South Park) were the standard uniform. They wore them in the dead of summer to ‘look cool’.
I remember saving up for a pair of Timberlines...as they were steel toe, insulated and GREAT (and expensive) work boots. Today they are just wannabee gangbanger passee fashion.
Yes, fully formed reformed! Um, she got better.
:o)
I am 20 years older than you and I am a white woman. I have several hooded sweatshirts and jackets with hoods. They never were a racial thing until now. I only put the hood up when it is raining, they are very practical garments.
Well Done Frank...very well done.....*thumbs up!*
Unfortunately, no. We mock our son with graphic vocabulary and pointing-and-laughing, but he is impervious. His friends ask him for fashion advice.
AMEN for one of my generations greatest minds.
I saw a kid wearing "pants" like that, last week. And I thought he was just poor./s>
The pants were little more than shorts, half way down his cheeks and just above his ankles.
I just thought he couldn't afford a full pair of pants, and bought a pair of shorts, and decided to split the difference. :)
I heard it was raining and in the high 50’s to low 60’s.
Could be why, but then who knows?
I refuse to wear any clothing with a baby-name. I don’t wear sockies or a dressie or a blousie or a scarfie ...
I have two zip-up sweatshirts with hoods - one is hot-pink velour (used to have matching pants, but they wore out) and the other is gray and says “Coast Guard Mom.” I don’t like pull-over outerwear, because it messes up my hair and pulls my earrings when going on or off. I also don’t like hoods, because when you turn your head to look behind you before backing up, all you can see is the inside of the hood. If my head is cold, I tie a scarf over my head and around my neck.
That was awesome. I am falling about laughing.
Duke was just down the street from me at UNC when the Lacrosse thing took place and I was thinking what a low quality school Dook is and how those professors should have read the same book I read and they could have avoided that mess.
And here we are once again with a similar, but ramped up plot line and a few of the same characters from the Dook Lacrosse thing. Seems like old times.
It's too late for them to read the book, but it's not too late to start creatively prosecuting those who stir up racial tensions for their own gain, before we get to an actual lynching or skip the lynching and go straight to LA race riots redux.
In 2012, obama put away his Hope and Change campaign slogan. This election it's "Recreate '68!"
The Ox Bow Incident is good parallel to what has happened too often over the years. The Duke fiasco was shameful and it’s fortunate no physical harm came to any of the accused but untold harm was done to their reputations and their families while to this day the Duke 88 haven’t so much as said they are sorry, what a pathetic group of professors.
Race baiters like Sharpton and Jackson are nothing more than criminals and should be locked up. I was involved in some of the ‘65 Watts riots and it wasn’t pretty. Riots across the country and later on were probably just as bad but instead of those two turkeys working to improve race relations they inflame and just make things worse.
This current thing is pathetic. The initial investigation has basically found no criminal behavior by Zimmerman, I’m not trying to blow off the death of Martin, it’s a tragedy. The way the two race hustlers along with a few helpers are pouring gas on the flames there could very well be much blood spilled as well as untold dollars in property damage.
They both refer to themselves as reverands. Pathetic!
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