It evidently takes some cojones to deal with a kid costumed as common conceptions of a thug.
I remember feeling that way…eleven o’clock one night, jogging around a block in Glendale and bang! I was in the middle of a huge bunch…maybe thirty…dark-clad young guys lounging near a corner streetlight…I thought..“Oh… and just kept on running…they all shuffled, the sitting ones leapt to their feet…”Good evening, sir…" a chorus…I was already around the corner by that time and said, “Evening, guys…”
Polite, cheerful. Just teens on a summer night…
Several years later when I had gotten smarter I used to ‘drop into’ a crowd of Bloods visiting the Mall where I was doing security…I’d just slip in and bop along with them, walking in their rhythms, “being” like I belonged, had been there forever…
Usually it’d be five minutes before somebody would notice…“Hey! one of us is an old bald-headed white guy…”
And we’d talk, they’d reassure me that they were friendly and I’d bump some fists and shake some hands…
Can’t judge a book by the cover…of course it’s stupid to dress like a zebra in lion country, in THAT the kids could use some wake-ups. But remember how we wore our hair long and ticked off our elders? A hoodie is just stupidfashion choice, considering. No kid would wear a huge old-fashioned sombrero downtown or to high school…THAT’S not FASHION.
Tattoos? jeez, what a waste of vanity and a ruiner of beauty…gold fake teeth? also barbaric, also fashionable.Ugly? hoodies? all the above.
Will kids wear these things? vanity and the need to set one’s social appearance will always win…ESPECIALLY in a culture that preaches and values effortless dominance and intimidation.
The kids’ fashion idols should…perhaps…be shot…but then, many of them are, every year. Who led American youth to aim for the lowest common denominator?
It evidently takes some cojones to deal with a kid costumed as common conceptions of a thug.
I remember feeling that way…eleven o’clock one night, jogging around a block in Glendale and bang! I was in the middle of a huge bunch…maybe thirty…dark-clad young guys lounging near a corner streetlight…I thought..“Oh… and just kept on running…they all shuffled, the sitting ones leapt to their feet…”Good evening, sir…" a chorus…I was already around the corner by that time and said, “Evening, guys…”
Polite, cheerful. Just teens on a summer night…
Several years later when I had gotten smarter I used to ‘drop into’ a crowd of Bloods visiting the Mall where I was doing security…I’d just slip in and bop along with them, walking in their rhythms, “being” like I belonged, had been there forever…
Usually it’d be five minutes before somebody would notice…“Hey! one of us is an old bald-headed white guy…”
And we’d talk, they’d reassure me that they were friendly and I’d bump some fists and shake some hands…
Can’t judge a book by the cover…of course it’s stupid to dress like a zebra in lion country, in THAT the kids could use some wake-ups. But remember how we wore our hair long and ticked off our elders? A hoodie is just stupidfashion choice, considering. No kid would wear a huge old-fashioned sombrero downtown or to high school…THAT’S not FASHION.
Tattoos? jeez, what a waste of vanity and a ruiner of beauty…gold fake teeth? also barbaric, also fashionable.Ugly? hoodies? all the above.
Will kids wear these things? vanity and the need to set one’s social appearance will always win…ESPECIALLY in a culture that preaches and values effortless dominance and intimidation.
The kids’ fashion idols should…perhaps…be shot…but then, many of them are, every year. Who led American youth to aim for the lowest common denominator?