The organization now sell a range of hoodies themselves. Sole vowed to wear a hoodie to class every day to change the perception of the garment. “As the hoodie because associated with ‘Black hoodlums’ in the media, some Black people avoided them and others embraced them: the public image of the hoodie made it into a statement of racial pride and defiance, solidarity with a community, an emblem of belonging, and all of that reinforced the negative associations for those who were inclined to be afraid of assertive Black people,” Ford said.įord added: “Putting on a hoodie as a Black man involved a decision to make a statement that could make some people mistrust you, get you hassled by police, even killed.”Īfter Martin’s shooting, Jason Sole, a professor at Minnesota’s Hamline University, created a Facebook post with the #Humanizemyhoodie hashtag which fought to take the stigma out of men of color wearing hoodies. “My father made sure I was cautious, especially if I had a hoodie on in public.”Īt the time the hoodie was caught up in a sort of semantic call-and-response revealing racism around crime in America, according to Richard Thompson Ford, the author of Dress Codes. From that moment on I knew I had to be very aware of my surroundings as a means of survival,” he wrote. “This is when I realized racism was real.

White has been wearing a number of custom-made hoodies from A3 Craaaftz, including ones celebrating historical figures during Black History Month such as Claudette Colvin, Matthew Henson, Shirley Chisholm and one of Martin featuring the logo “Don’t Shoot”. “I’ll never forget when Trayvon Martin was killed in 2012, I was 12 years old,” wrote Chicago Bulls’ player Coby White on Instagram. Now, in the same month Martin would have turned 26 had he lived, wearing a hoodie is still sparking conversations and debate around racist perceptions of Black young people.

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