Beneath the hoodie

By Quad-City Times

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Beneath Trayvon Martin's dark cotton hood was a complicated teenager living the precarious interval between boyhood and manhood.

From the outside, the 6-foot-3, 150-pound 17-year-old may have looked like a man concealed in apparel some associate with thugs and crime.

Beneath the hoodie, Martin was a grown child, carrying a bag of kid's candy and wearing a piece of clothing found in the closet of almost every teenager and sold in every Target or Walmart in America.

His tragic death at the hands of a self-appointed, armed neighborhood watch volunteer has made the hoodie a new symbol for racism.

As if Americans needed another.

Americans often have been too quick to judge, assigning sinister intentions to fads and fashions. This decade, sideways baseball caps and low-slung baggy trousers arouse suspicion the same way leather jackets did in the 1950s; long hair did in the ‘60s and `70s; shaved heads in the ‘80s; or tattoos or piercings in the ‘90s.

Those fashions became popular because - not in spite - of their infamy. They give teens the sense of independence and identity they yearn for on that perilous road to adulthood.

In this common, adolescent ritual, we rely on the grown-ups not to be fooled. Most aren't. They know these fashions don't begin to reveal the intentions, motivations and aspirations of wonderfully unique individuals.

Police officers know this. Teachers, coaches and pastors knows this. Good parents, for sure, know this.

This tragedy couldn't have happened had Martin encountered an adult better acquainted with human nature than with Florida's gun laws.