CohenAs The Washington Post’s Richard Cohen put it in his column this morning, Trayvon Martin’s original sin was wearing a certain uniform: a hooded sweatshirt. While Cohen is unsure if George Zimmerman, who was acquitted last weekend for the 17-year-old Martin’s death last year in Sanford, Fla., harbors racist tendencies, he is sure of one thing.
He’s tired of people wearing hoodies in solidarity with Martin. “But I’m tired of politicians and others who have donned hoodies in solidarity with Martin and who essentially suggest that, for recognizing the reality of urban crime in the United States, I am a racist,” he writes.
In particular, Cohen points to New York City Council Speaker (and mayoral candidate) Christine Quinn, and other politicians who appeared in hooded sweatshirts following Martin’s death last year. (For the record, so did people as varied as the roster of D.C. United and demonstrators who filled U.S. streets in protest over Martin’s death.) Martin was wearing a hooded sweatshirt at the time Zimmerman shot him.
As Cohen sees it, hooded sweatshirts are popular with young black males, who, statistically, make up a high percentage of suspects in certain types of crime. Thus, Cohen concludes, he is more than comfortable with racial profiling regime such as New York’s stop-and-frisk tactics.
But where Cohen really seems to have stepped in it is in a subsequent interview with Politico’s Dylan Byers, in which he described hoodies thusly:
“A hoodie,” Cohen told Politico when asked what he meant by that line. “It’s what’s worn by a whole lot of thugs. Look in the newspapers, online or on television: you see a lot of guys in the mugshots wearing hoodies.”
I pointed out that Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder, is also known to wear a hoodie.
“Right, so it’s the uniform of billionaires and thugs,” Cohen said with a chuckle.
Zimmerman, according to all available evidence, never suspected Martin of being a billionaire. And while Cohen tried to backtrack his column by telling Byers he was referring to “young black males woh were dressed in a certain way,” his piece refers only to “young black males,” full stop.
Reaction to Cohen’s column has been flowing all day, but the Post is standing behind its longtime columnist. (This time, at least. In 1986, it apologized for a column Cohen wrote for the Post Magazine defending some D.C. jewelry stores’ decisions to not allow black men to enter.)
“If I had not published the column, just as many people would be asking why the Post can’t tolerate diverse points of view,” Fred Hiatt, the Post’s editorial page editor, told The Huffington Post.
OK, but you know what else is diverse? Hooded sweatshirt ownership. One might not want to wear one today, considering the weather, but lots of people own hoodies. As Washington City Paper notes, you can even buy one from The Washington Post!
