Fox News' coverage of the Trayvon Martin shooting has generated quite a bit of criticism, but matters took a turn for the worse this morning on "Fox & Friends." TPM posted this clip.
Media Matters has a full transcript, but the quote from Geraldo Rivera is almost hard to believe:
"I believe that George Zimmerman, the overzealous neighborhood watch captain should be investigated to the fullest extent of the law and if he is criminally liable, he should be prosecuted. But I am urging the parents of black and Latino youngsters particularly to not let their children go out wearing hoodies. I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin's death as George Zimmerman was."
I'm trying to wrap my head around this, and I'll admit I'm having trouble. A young man in central Florida was walking home in the rain, so he put the hood up on his sweater. This led an armed man to follow the teenager, and ultimately, kill him.
The hoodie is "as much responsible" for the slaying as the shooter? Seriously?
The consensus on "Fox & Friends" was that people -- including, presumably, my boss -- should simply stop wearing hoodies. There were no concerns raised about Florida's controversial "stand your ground" law, or the availability of firearms, or even Zimmerman's actions.
The problem, viewers were told, was a teenager wearing a hood while walking in the rain.
Oh my.
Update: Rivera tweets, "My own son just wrote to say he's ashamed of my position re hoodies - still I feel parents must do whatever they can to keep their kids safe."
Leave a Comment:
So he was 'asking for it' because of what he was wearing?
Where have I heard this type of argument before.....
More of the same 'blame the victim' justice from conservatives.
conservative? Geraldo? Really?
Isn't this this same thing as the low-cut blouse on a rape victim?
We have a winner!
Not a bad analogy, but this is even worse. I'm 42, white, and I wear a hoodie in the rain. This is like blaming a mugging victim for going out with a wallet.
This is good news, though, for Mitt, Newt, Santorum, Boehner and pretty much everyone else; nothing they could possibly say today would be any stupider than what Geraldo said.
Oh, so if a woman wears a low cut blouse she is saying please RAPE me??? OMG
The unabomber, a white college professor from Berkley, wore a hoodie.....
The unabomber wore shoes, too.
Hey Henry Rivers - Here's how I see it: White man has predisposed suspicion of black youth. White man plays neighborhood cop, complete with gun because the state of Florida says it's ok to have one just in case you have to shoot a problem or something like that. The die is cast!
Enter an innocent black youth who need not have read Richard Wright's Black Boy to know white intimidation is right around any corner in the South. In the end, White man shoots and kills Skiddles armed innocent Black youth.
No, Henry Rivers, the hoodie did not kill the beauty, it was the racism and a cockamamie Florida state law that allows a most South Park surrealism to be played out - "shoot it Ned! It's coming right at us!" - that killed the beauty!
Trayvon Martin - R.I.P. May our nation learn from your tragic encounter with a man willing to use terminal force for all the wrong reasons! -Kevo
actually, Zimmerman is Hispanic, but your comment still works. Any race can be bigoted towards another.
There is an audio of the 911 call, and Zimmerman clearly says "f#$%in' coon" moments before he shot Trayvon. The police say they missed it. Funny, I can barely hear and I could make it out as plain as day.
I wait to see if Zimmerman and his family continue using his minority heritage as a defense against the possible charge of "hate crime".
the man was not white...he was latino
But he wasn't DARK skinned. He obviously had a big bigotry problem.
Zimmerman is of mixed race; white and hispanic (although of course hispanics are often of white extraction, native Indian, or black.)
Is this surprising for Fox News? Par for the course. When I think about the Trayvon Martin case I get tears in my eyes. When I see Fox News piling on with their bullcrap and adding their sick, twisted view of the world to all of this, I feel a rage inside. Fox has done more to poison the spirit of this country than anything I've ever encountered. I hope Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes burn in hell for what they do.
It was raining the day Trayvon was shot.
It was raining the day Geraldo was wearing his hoodie
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cyclonecowboy/363115178
Oh, excellent. Make this viral, please.
...slowly shakes head...
Geraldo's entire argument was a bit of a mess, but I'll take some highlights:
I'm pretty sure that criminals also wear gloves, shoes, shirts, and pants--just like everyone else. In bad weather, I happen to like wearing hoodies, too. My hoodie says "Carnegie Mellon University", so you know I'm reppin' the hood!!!
Clearly, we need to keep kids from wearing pants. The fact that Trayvon Martin was wearing pants is at least as responsible for his death as his hoodie.
And 7-11 has signs posted as you walk in that they will not serve anyone with a hoodie. There is even a graphic drawing to go along with the warning in case you didn't understand the sentence
Holy hell Geraldo!!! Since when is a hoodie "gansta"??? I can understand not walking into a building with your hood up, because they want to see your face, but to say that wearing a hoodie at all is "gangsta" is ridiculous. I wear hoodies all the time and I'm so far from gangsta that it's unreal! My bank has a sign that says to remove sunglasses, hats and lower your hoods (or some similar language), but I doubt I'd get shot if I left my sunglasses on.
Geraldo is stupid. He should change his name so as to not embarrass the Latino population.
What an A&&HOLE!
I'm deleting the rest of this post before the moderator does.
National outrage at the Trayvon shooting shows the public is not taking the right-wing gun-waving crap. Right-wingers can wave their guns at each other and think they are cool and brave but when they escape their little world they become dangerous. Right-wing gun-waving gets innocent people killed.
Same with national outrage at Komen. The people are not taking the right-wing moral posturing.
Same with national outrage at extension of Bush tax cuts for the rich.
Same with national agreement with Ron Paul's anti-militarism.
Same with national protests against Wall Street bailouts.
We are made as hell and we are not taking it anymore!
Uh, only the crazies are agreeing with Ron Paul's racist newsletters, doll, not the nation. His "anti-war" stance is just wacky xenophobia. He'd rather spend the money shoving shaming stick up ladies' hoohahs. Nice try, though, slick.
Gosh, I love that movie. :)
"Ron Paul's anti-militarism" - uh, nobody's agreeeing with that. And he's not anti-military or anti-war - he's anti-spending. If war was free, Racist Ronnie would be lobbying for wars every day and twice on Sunday.
I think Covah's point was that people agree w/ the idea of not going to war any more, which has forever been the neo-con position. I don't think Covah was endorsing RP or saying that Paul wouldn't favor 'free' wars.
I think Covah's point was that people agree w/ the idea of not going to war any more
Yep.
Which has eff-all to do with Racist Ronnie and everything to do with not wanting our country mired in endless, pointless war. There is a difference between these things. There is opposition to war without the influence of Racist Ronnie. He didn't invent the anti-war movement.
Geraldo; Don't you have some vaults you can open or alien autopsies to supervise ...like the real newsman you are?
As a parent of a 22 year old asian son, I have told my son similar things about his attire. I am a firm believer that here in America we do have the right to dress any way we like -- but we unfortunately still have to deal with other people's perceptions as well. I am lothe to blame any victim of any abuse for their attire but I also know that stereotypes persist in our culture and that is the thing we have to address not our right to exist in America for who we are no matter our attire.
This is the critical point.
It's perfectly appropriate for a parent to teach their kids what to wear, and to point out from experience the consequences of wearing certain things. But it is not in the least appropriate to use that same idea to in any slightest way excuse the assailant or murderer.
Because young women should be able to go out in public in revealing clothing without being raped. And young black men should be able to wear hoodies to the convenience store without being hunted down and shot.
Telling your kids how you expect them to dress, including that it can get them hurt in the real world is valid and sensible. But that isn't the same as saying "the hoodie is just as responsible" as the wackjob with the gun.
The mainstream press often find the need to identify some cause for violence. We often hear reports that someone's husband hit her because.... or the man took a sledgehammer to his neighbor's car because...with the end of those sentences being "reasons" for the violence. What people wear is not a reason behind violence. How about this: Zimmerman shot this kid because he hasn't addressed his own anger and self-control issues and someone gave him the authority to carry a weapon? The reason behind violence is that people haven't learned how to use their words, they get off on it and aren't deterred by the legal consequences. Telling your kids how to dress will help them get jobs, but I don't think it will help keep them safe. Educating about the truth around anger and violence might be a step in that direction.
Proof once again that Jerry Rivers (his real name before he found that changing it was a good career move) is a DROOLING MORON. He is sooo stupid, I think even most right wingers laugh at his b.s. No wonder Doonesbury has been satirizing him with the character of Roland Hedley for all these years.
Oh for God sake, kids always wear crazy stuff. It's part of growing up. But hey, I'm an old lady and I wear a hoodie and so does my old man. Guess we better shape up before someone thinks we are geriatric hoodlums and takes a gun to us!
Add this sixty-something dude to the hoodie-wearing criminal gang. I like to keep the house cool, but don't have enough hair to be comfortable without the hood.
Maybe I'm just "asking for it."
Those 60 plus ladies with tramp stamps are the ones who need to get shot! Just kidding I suppose next it will be open season on piercings, tattoos, spiked hair! Geez, half the population will get gunned down!
Good to hear from you D.C.
Don't your kids walk around in their black or brown skin. The only hoodies still stylish in a bigoted heart is a KKK hoodie.
That's right kids, leave the Hoodia at home!
I think to a certain extent - which speaks quite poorly for this country - Rivera is actually right. If I had a teenaged son who was black I wouldn't allow him out of the house dressed in certain attire. Simply for the fact that as his parent I'd be afraid he'd be assaulted or killed just for wearing the "wrong" clothes.
Which of course is not the boy's fault. It's the fault of people who would do what Zimmerman did. Should it be this way? No, but as a parent I'd err on the side of caution. That we're still having this discussion in the second decade of the 21st century is pretty sad.
As long as we apologize for our innocent attire, we are part of the problem, NOT part of the solution!
This reminds me of what I told a friend. If you were walking down the street and saw a weirdly behaving dog with froth around its mouth, you would cross the street rather than keep walking straight toward it just because you have a right to walk on that street. The point is that if certain actions are more likely to lead to your harm, you avoid those actions in order to stay safe.
Too bad that Trayvon wasn't able to avoid the frothing dog!
Next they'll be outlawing hoodies! Sunglasses and baseball caps to follow.
HA! Not a chance. Too many white frat boys wear those. Much easier to just outlaw being young and black.
Yet cigarettes will remain legal eternally. Talk about yer killers! (ba-dum-dum)
roses are red,violets are blue, wear a hoodie and they'll shoot you too;-)
I'm a 57 year-old grandmother who wears hoodies all the time. It is not about the hoodie. It is about the racism that pervades our society.
You could be in big trouble if any neighbors own semi-automatics.
Just yesterday, a creepy-looking, hoodie-wearing white kid cut through my yard twice. Maybe I should have blown him away. I don't think I would have gotten away with it, though, as he was white, after all. He wasn't guilty of WWB (walking while black). Also I don't have a gun.
I owned a bar and grill. I also do screen printing. The bar was located near a Naval Base/Shipyard. My cliental consisted of 8hr a day workers raning in age of mid twenties to early 60s and some retired navy vets. My best seller of all the garments I made were black pull over hoodies with my corporate logo on the back. Hoodies don't get people killed, people carrying guns kill people
It was touching that this is what geraldo pleads with his own son about, but the rest is silly and btw geraldo, it WAS raining out... I wear hoodies, I'm old and they keep my neck warm.
As if we needed MORE proof that the FAUX "News" "news reporters" were idiots. This is just the icing on the cake. I suppose Geraldo will be blaming department stores and colleges next, since they SELL hoodies, thus promoting the gangsta lifestyle, right? I suppose I should never wear a hoodie (with the hood up) in the cold weather or rain, when walking to the mailbox, because that signals I'm a gangsta. Never mind that I'm alone and walking to a mailbox. Obviously I'm up to no good. /sarcasm
Geraldo Rivera at one time (WABC-TV Channel-7 NYC) who broke the Willowbrook State Hospital on Staten Island Story was a respected honest journalist now he he has slipped to just another FOX News shock anchor
We are talking about Geraldo Rivera. The man specializes in dumb. He built a whole career on dumb.