Community Corner

African-American Apparel: Are Hoodies Sending the Wrong Message? [POLL]

In wake of Trayvon Martin shooting, debate flares up over popular outerwear.

Geraldo Rivera sparked a debate last week that reverberated from the halls of the Capitol in Albany to the pulpit of in Clinton Hill.

Rivera said on Fox and Friends last Friday that he thought it was Trayvon Martin's hoodie that most likely got him killed on the dark streets of Sanford, Fla. on the night of Feb. 26 at the hands of neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman. 

Those comments prompted both state Sen. Eric Adams, D-Crown Heights, a former police officer stationed at the 88th Precinct, and Rev. Clinton Miller at Brown Memorial to recently don the popular outerwear in a gesture of solidarity with the young man and his family.

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Still, against a recent spate of gun violence in Fort Greene, should parents and teachers try to keep black and Latino young people from wearing hoodies that might send the wrong impression?

Or is the recent debate much ado about a piece of clothing just as likely worn by a white Williamsburg hipster as a young African-American teen in Central Brooklyn?

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